Ink and Lace
by WonderfullyStrange801
Summary: Winnifred Laisure feels suffocated by the proper life she's forced to live under the constant watch of her controlling mother, and she's terrified of an unsatisfying future she feels helplessly destined for. One night she escapes to Barnum's show and is drawn into the world of music, wonder, and a tattooed man equally enthralled by the young woman in the second row (CONSTATINExOC)
1. Chapter 1

1.

Winnie could hear the ladies in the parlour.

Of course, this was certainly nothing new. Most days she could be in her bedroom, an entire floor above them, their shrill voices would still manage to reach her unwilling ears.

Today, however, the ladies seemed especially upset about something.

Winnie lingered outside the parlour, her feet bare and tip-toeing hesitantly across the wood floors. She didn't dare step on the boards she knew would certainly groan under her weight. She didn't want mother, nor any of her friends, to know she was eavesdropping. She could get in trouble. Or worse, be forced to join the conversation.

"—an absolute freak show," her mother was saying, her voice thick with revulsion. The other women offered their agreements.

"I certainly would never subject myself to that sort of a sight," she continued. "Imagine, sitting there and witnessing that spectacle of…of…monstrosities!"

Now Winnie was intrigued. Monstrosities? Freaks? What could her mother possibly be talking about?

She moved closer to the doorway, still hidden by the shadows in the hall but now able to get a better look inside. She saw her mother seated at the head of the table (of course), sipping at her tea with her mouth turned down quite sourly. On either side of her, several of her friends did the same, each sharing looks of absolute abhorrence. Whatever they spoke of, clearly none of them approved.

Millie Palmer, a woman who Winnie always associated with the nauseating smell of musky perfume, produced a piece of paper and showed the ladies at the table.

"'Barnum Museum'," she read with a trill laugh. "I should hardly think so. More like a parade of misfits, if you ask me."

This was the first Winnie had heard of this Barnum Museum. She strained to see what the paper displayed but Millie was crumpling it in her shaking fist.

"Ridiculous," she announced, and tossed the paper aside.

Winnie's mother clucked her tongue in agreement. "Mark my word, the people of this city will not buy into this sort display. We are a society of class and elegance. That place will be closed before it even opens."

The rest of the women offered their support for this, but Winnie was done listening. Her eyes had followed the crumpled ball of paper and now stared eagerly at where it had landed, not a foot away from the door. If she could just sneak in there and grab it, she could find out just what this museum of monstrosities is. Perhaps the ladies would finish their tea and leave soon.

Or, perhaps, she could inch just slightly closer and reach her arm in, snatching up the paper before any of the ladies noticed she'd done it.

Encouraged by her own idea, Winnie crept closer to the door and ducked down slightly, wearily eyeing her mother. She seemed distracted by her sorority of birds, all chirping and agreeing with whatever nonsense she sputtered out that day. Surely she wouldn't notice if Winnie just moved the tiniest bit closer…

"Winnifred?"

Oh no.

She snapped upright at the sound of her mother's voice. "Yes, mother?"

All of the ladies had turned in their chairs and were now staring with narrowed, accusing eyes. Her mother's stare burned hotter than all the rest.

"What on earth are you doing?" she asked, her words tight and clipped.

Winnie clasped her hands behind her back and straightened her posture, conscious that otherwise, this was certainly something her mother point out for her to do.

"I heard you all discussing something with such passion and distaste," she said softly. "I simply came to find out what was so distressing to warrant it."

Certainly not a lie. Winnie had ventured towards the parlour to discover what the ladies hated so much. She simply just resisted adding she was intrigued.

Her mother replaced her teacup to its saucer and squarely faced her daughter. "That's nothing a young lady should concern herself with. Besides," her eyes flickered to search the faces of each of her friends', "we do not suspect it will be a problem much longer."

The women all murmured in unison, nodding their heads.

Winnie simply remained in the doorway, resisting the urge to bend her knees and snatch up the ball of crumpled paper. She was so close to it now – she could practically touch it with her toes. She didn't dare move, however. She was no fool.

"Have you finished your readings?" Her mother asked now.

Winnie nodded. "Yes," she lied smoothly. "I finished within the hour, actually."

"Good. And your writings?"

"Finished."

The smile that stretched across her mother's lips was pleased, but fleeting. It was gone before she was sure she actually saw it.

"Then I suppose you have time to sit and join us," her mother said, gesturing to the one empty chair left at the table. "Surely you would like to spend more time with the ladies of society. After all, you will be joining yourself soon."

Winnie found it difficult to swallow the idea but felt herself nodding in agreement. "Yes, mother. Of course I'll join you."

It was tradition in her family for young women to become a part of the society when they reached the age of sixteen. However, Winnie had put off joining herself, insisting she finish her schooling before resigning herself to a fate of tired luncheons and stuffy banquets before eventually marrying some stiff-lipped son of one of the society's members.

Her mother, of course, wanted her to join right away. Thankfully, Winnie's father, himself an educated man, agreed perhaps it would be best for Winnie to finish her studies. He saw a brightness in his own child, an intelligence he didn't wish to stand back and watch fade during a life composed of high society rituals.

He was, and remains, certainly the only man Winnie could ever love so much.

Now she was twenty-two and had finished her studies, earning herself a degree in literature and ancient history. Where she could go from there was mapped by a forked road – one path lead to a life of teaching children, which she's never believed herself fit to pursue, and the other lead to a life spent wasting away in parlours, such as her own, sipping tea and resigning herself to a fate worse than death.

The ladies at the table began chatting about the upcoming Sunday service at church but Winnie could not bring herself to join. She numbly chewed on a sugar biscuit and focused on keeping her back straight against her chair, all the while gazing longingly at the crumpled paper.

At some point during the conversation, the paper began to unravel itself, almost as if the heat of her gaze was enough to kickstart the process. It was slow, agonizingly slow, but eventually it expanded enough for Winnie to be able to make out the image of a man.

He stared impassively back at her, unsmiling, emotionless. She found herself caught in a staring contest with a painting but she couldn't help it. She couldn't look away.

He was young, she could tell that right away. Perhaps only a few years older than her. But there was wisdom behind his dark eyes – a history that captured her heart and made her feel breathless. What have those eyes seen to age him so? What has he witnessed to make him appear so calm and yet so anguished?

It took her a moment of staring to realize there was more to this man than dark hair, a thick beard and those powerful eyes. His skin was covered in ink, little markings that began on his forehead and went all the way down his cheeks.

The symbols meant nothing to Winnie and yet she felt herself yearning to trace them with the soft pad of her finger.

There was a title printed above the man's head. She couldn't really make it out at first – parts of it were still crumpled. But eventually she deciphered it to say, "TATTOO MAN".

"But what is his _name_?" Winnie asked aloud, surprising herself and the ladies at the table who all fell silent.

Her mother blinked furiously at her, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Excuse me?"

Winnie floundered for a moment and then caught the gaze of Elizabeth Harman from across the table.

"I said what is his name…Your son, Elizabeth. The one who danced with me at the banquet last spring. What is his name?"

Elizabeth looked taken aback for a moment before relaxing into a hesitant smile. "Oh. Well, that was my eldest, Bernard. He's a physician at the hospital here in town." She offered a subtle wink that really wasn't so subtle. "He's quite single and quite available, you know."

Her mother was still staring at her daughter hotly. "Why do you ask, Winnifred?"

"Oh," she squirmed slightly, uneasily. "I realized I haven't seen him at church lately. I've been hoping to run into him and talk more about his…practice."

Elizabeth was nodding, caught up in gloating about her son to the table. "Yes, well that's because he's been unimaginably busy lately. Lots of people catching viruses, you know. Terrible. But he's making a more than generous wage from it." She smiled proudly. "He's moved out and into his own home now. Won't be long before some lucky young woman catches his attention and keeps it."

Winnie forced a smile in return. "Perhaps I should pay him a visit. I've been feeling a little under the weather myself lately. It would also give us an opportunity to get to know each other even better."

The table erupted into excited bursts of suggestions for Winnie, all about the tremendous wedding ceremony she and "Doctor Bernard" could have, should they be engaged by summer. Winnie nodded along to each and every eager suggestion, all the while aware of her mother's suspicious, cold smile from the head of the table. She refused to look at her though and played along, easily slipping into the role of society lady quite well.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the gaze of the tattooed man and felt her heart leap into her throat. It wasn't quite as fierce or as accusing as her mother's, but it certainly felt knowing – like he could see through her lie and wasn't afraid to let her know he had caught her.

But why did it feel so exhilarating to be caught by him?


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Constantine wiped at his brow with the back of his hand and then hesitated, his lips touching the cool glass of the bottle in his hand. A moment passed and he took a deep swig of the drink.

Around him, members of the troupe blurred in a flurry of motion, each trying to ready themselves for tonight's performance with less than an hour before the crowd would start filing in. He felt their excitement, their anxiety, but couldn't reciprocate. His own veins hummed with the warm flow of alcohol and, for the time being, he couldn't bring himself to share in their pleasure for this nightly routine.

"Constantine," he felt a heavy hand clap his shoulder and knew at once it was Barnum. "You're not dressed yet."

He gave a hearty snort of derision. "Dressed" was an interesting way to put it – his preparations for the show largely comprised of him getting _un_ dressed.

"In a minute," he replied, and lifted the near-empty bottle in his hand. "Must finish supper first."

Barnum walked around to face the young man, already dressed in his own outfit and holding the brim of his hat in his hands. His brow wrinkled at the sight of Constantine, slumped against a barrel with his shirt unbuttoned, hair mussed and the stench of alcohol surrounding him like a poor man's cologne.

"You're a mess," Barnum told him flatly. "You shouldn't perform tonight."

Constantine laughed. "I've performed under worst circumstances."

Barnum was unamused and made a move to grab the bottle from his hand. Usually Constantine's reflexes were much better, and usually he would be able to dodge Barnum's grab and carry on with his merry drink. But tonight he was sloppy and lost the bottle to Barnum.

"Sober up," he said coldly. "And don't make this a habit."

Constantine watched him walk away and felt an ugly resentment bubbling in the middle of his chest. He stood with unsteady legs, garnering much support from the barrel behind him, and managed to somehow make it to where his "outfit" was hanging on a hook against the wall.

He picked up the shorts and the cape, held them in his hands, and not for the first time wondered if perhaps tonight would be the night he slipped out before the show and disappeared into the dark for good.

It was a sad fantasy, yes, but it often brought Constantine a feeling of comfort, knowing here he had the power to simply end his role at the circus once and for all. He was not chained to the stables, like the elephants. He was not bound by any financial obligation, like Barnum who needed to pay back his debt to the bank.

No, Constantine was here because one day he read a flyer on the outside of a bar and wondered if perhaps it were time he used his unsightly body to make himself some money. He was tired of living in brothels, tired of women who flinched when he touched them and grimaced when they had to touch him in return.

So here he was, months later, donning the tightest little pair of shorts Barnum could find and tying a cape around his shoulders like it might make the outfit any less ridiculous.

Sometimes Constantine yearned for his life outside the circus. But what life was that really?

* * *

Barnum Museum was not, in fact, much of a museum at all.

As Winnie seated herself in the second row, gathering her dress beneath her bottom and taking in the centre of the arena, she thought perhaps it was more like a theatre production. After all, museums are stiff, cold places with old things you walk past and stare at. Here, it seemed everyone was meant to stare, but the "things" performed for the audience. How could that make it a museum?

The whole place smelled like hay and animals. Winnie wrinkled her nose a bit at this, but she couldn't deny she was intoxicated by the atmosphere. The entire place was positively alive with excitement. She was surrounded by people who were all chattering on about previous shows they'd seen; some even said they had just been there the night before.

The lights suddenly turned off. A single spotlight was directed on the far end of the room where heavy curtains were drawn tightly together. As the audience began to cheer, Winnie held her breath and prepared herself for whatever was about to come bursting through. This is it, she told herself. It was time to see these so-called "monstrosities" mother was so appalled about.

At once the curtains flew open and a mob of movement rushed inside. People were dancing, singing, flying about – Winnie didn't know what to focus on. She was positively speechless.

They were conducting some sort of a musical performance. Each person moved about differently but still remained part of the larger group. She saw a man with hair covering his entire face who tumbled around on the floor, quickly jumping up to his feet again to rejoin the dance; there were two people quite literally flying about the ceiling, catching each other and swinging from ropes; and then there was a caped man, naked all but for a pair of small shorts, who came to a stop right in front of where she sat.

Winnie's breath caught in her throat. It was him, the tattooed man from the paper.

He didn't notice her, of course. She was probably just another face in the crowd. But oh, did she notice him.

He was even more beautiful in person.

Now she could see all of him. His bare torso was lean and muscular, covered with the same sort of inked markings she had seen on his face. He moved with an elegant sort of grace that felt practiced and perfected. She found herself wondering what it would be like to dance with him.

The performance continued, but she hardly took notice. Her eyes trained on the tattooed man, who suddenly dropped to one knee and struck a pose, his hands clasped behind his head and biceps flexed tautly.

She'd never seen this much of any man before. She could feel herself leaning forward, her chin nearly touching the hat of the woman seated in front of her. But it was as if she simply could not get close enough. She wanted to see _more,_ like she couldn't truly be satisfied less she was standing right there in that arena beside him.

Her cheeks colored hotly. What a silly idea. There was nothing extraordinary about her.

* * *

The music sounded hollow and distant in Constantine's ears.

He could feel the alcohol surging and powering through his body, warming his limbs and threatening to spill out through his finger tips. He was quite drunk, more drunk than he'd ever been while performing. Yet he still managed to carry on with the show, dancing like a fool for an audience of faceless cheers – the same people who would normally cross the street if they saw him approaching.

He found his mark and stayed on the spot, clapping his hands along to the beat like Barnum had told them to do. Tonight he didn't feel much like singing. They were lucky he was even able to dance, but he feared opening his mouth may welcome the arrival of an ugly upheaval, and so he kept his lips pressed tightly together.

He had his back to the audience, but the lights in the arena were beginning to strain his eyes. So he rotated his body and faced the cheering crowd, not really looking at them but looking through them. His eyes flickered from face to face. They were the same faces he was used to. There was nothing particularly extraordinary about this crowd tonight, as per –

His clapping fell silent. The entire arena fell silent around him. An elephant could have stampeded towards him but at that moment, Constantine would not have noticed.

In the second row, a young woman sat perched on the edge of her seat with eager eyes set directly on him. Her hair was shockingly bright, the color of copper, and fell in ringlets around her pale face. Her eyes were wide and framed by the longest lashes he'd ever seen. She simply did not look real.

Constantine hesitated, missed a few beats in the song, lost his place. He quickly shook his head and looked away from the girl again, attempting to find himself in the music and rejoin the performance. But even as he moved away, he could feel her watching him. This was a different look than he was used to. It wasn't the sick intrigue that painted the faces of the audience. It wasn't revulsion, which he was certainly most accustomed to seeing.

It was happiness, in the simplest sense, like he was the one she'd been waiting all evening to see.

The rest of the show moved like the world had suddenly gained tremendous speed. Constantine resisted looking back at the girl again but she was constantly right there in his mind, a figure he couldn't shake.

Even after it had all ended, he felt himself drawn back into the arena like some invisible force was physically pulling him. He stood between the parted curtains and watched the audience slowly empty from their seats, searching each body for the girl with the copper hair. He was too far away – he couldn't see her.

Had it been the alcohol playing a cruel trick on his mind? Had he simply imagined her there, a conjured figure for him to pine uselessly after?

"Great show tonight," Lettie said, coming up beside him and beaming proudly out at the moving crowd. "I think we've earned ourselves at least three drinks."

Constantine was hardly listening but he nodded absently, still searching the arena. "Sure."

Lettie's smile slowly fell into a curious frown. "Are you alright?"

"I'm just… I'm just looking for someone."

She turned her attention out towards the crowd again and laughed. "I don't think you'll be able to find them from all the way back here. Maybe you should go outside the museum. People usually gather out there for a bit after the show."

Constantine faced her then, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he thought about her suggestion. The last time he'd gone outside on his own, someone had thrown a handful of rotten vegetables at his chest. Perhaps inside the arena he's a performer, but out there he's still a tattooed freak.

"If you want to find her," Lettie continued softly, "you can't stay in here."

He blinked. Had he told her it was a girl he was looking for? Her soft, knowing smile told him no, he didn't have to.

"I'll tell Barnum you had an errand to run," Lettie said, and touched a hand to his arm. She gave it a gentle, encouraging squeeze. "Go find her."

Constantine took a deep, shuddering breath. Perhaps she wasn't even out there. Perhaps she'd gone home right away, and he was walking into an uncontrolled mob of people with absolutely no rational purpose.

But perhaps she was out there, and perhaps she was waiting for him, too.

He steeled himself and gave Lettie one final, grateful nod, before beginning a purposeful stride towards the building's exit.

If she was out there, he was going to find her.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

At first, Winnie was simply going to leave and catch the trolley home.

That would have been the smart decision, she knew. It was after dark, and it had been hours since she'd been home. The lie she had told her mother was losing its veracity the longer she stayed out. She could practically see her now, pacing in the foyer and throwing her hands in the air furiously, demanding to know how long it takes someone to go visit a friend and surely her daughter should be home by now?

So, taking the first trolley home would have been a good idea. A rational idea, really.

Except Winnie couldn't seem to pull herself away from the lingering crowd who gathered outside the museum doors because truly, she couldn't bear the thought of leaving without just one more look at the tattooed man. Was it so impossible to think he might venture outside after a show for some fresh air, perhaps to mingle with his fans?

Winnie tucked some hair behind her ear and caught the eye of a gentleman standing a few feet from her. He was part of a larger cluster of men, all taking hearty swigs from brown bottles and staring with narrowed eyes at the closed museum doors. The man she had noticed she actually recognized as Roy Austen, someone who often spent his evenings drunk and stumbling along the cobblestone streets, shouting ugly words at women who happened to cross paths with him.

Even at this distance, Winnie could smell the whiskey that surrounded Roy and his friends like a pungent cloud. They were positively drunk, and by the looks of it, quite angry about something.

In fact, as she took a survey of the people standing around her outside the museum, she began to realize these were not the same people who had sat with her inside. Gone were those who had clapped along to the show and cheered on the performers, replaced now with a more unsavory troupe of mostly men who spat on the ground and seemed coiled, ready to spring on whoever emerged from the building.

Winnie felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She remembered the day before in her parlor, listening to her mother and all her friends go on about the show, sharing their disgust and desire for all the "freaks" to leave their city.

Surely there could be other people who shared their sentiments, people who wanted nothing to do with a performance put on entirely by those her mother so harshly branded to be "monstrosities".

Winnie looked back at the group of men and noticed their fists clenched tight around the necks of what were now empty bottles –arguably the perfect size and heft for throwing at someone, should they be deemed undesirable enough.

Everything happened at once then.

Just as Winnie realized what the men intended to do, she heard the sound of a heavy door groaning and creaking as it was opened. She looked towards the museum and saw someone was attempting to come out, their arm just barely visible as it emerged from inside to push on the door. It was covered by a dark jacket sleeve, but the hand was bare and unmistakably covered in black ink.

Roy noticed him at the same time Winnie did.

"Would you look at that fellas," he said with a wide, malicious smile spreading across his face. "I think one of them freaks is coming out for an encore."

Winnie threw herself forwards in a sprint that had her shoving people aside, rejecting every decorum lesson her mother had forced her to endure. She didn't stop to apologize, didn't let herself worry about her manners or how she was presenting herself in public. All she could do was focus on running towards the building and getting rid of whatever obstacles may stand in her way.

The door was now open. She could see the tattooed man stepping out from the darkness and searching the faces in the crowd with a frown. He was wearing far more clothes than he had during the show but Winnie could still make out the markings on his neck and face. Those he simply could not hide.

A bottle went flying past her head then, shattering against the brick of the building and startling the tattooed man who fell back a step.

Roy had missed, but only just barely.

Winnie broke from the crowd then, her hands gripping the hem of her dress and hiking it up past her knees so she could run as fast as possible. She should have warned the tattooed man – she could have shouted at him and waved her arms and told him to hide from the barbarians who wanted to hurt him.

Perhaps that would have been the smart decision. But Winnie wasn't really one for smart decisions, not that night anyway.

With a burst of energy surging through her limbs, she ran up the stairs and crashed right into the tattooed man, sending them both spiraling backward so they were swallowed by the dark interior of the museum together.

* * *

First, he saw a blur of fire.

It was as if it were a dream. The flames were like brilliant bursts of light, scorching the darkened streets and creating a spectacle of blistering beauty.

Constantine had only a moment to appreciate the sight before he felt a great force slam into his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs and forcing him onto his back as the weight followed him to the ground. He laid there, pinned by something or someone who was unmoving and allowed him no respite.

His senses were extraordinarily overwhelmed, largely by the sweet smell of what could only be described as women's perfume, surrounding his head in a fog of floral fragrance. He allowed himself to lay there, eyes closed and limbs aching as he inhaled the scent and felt quite far away from his own body.

And then, the person on top of him began to move.

"Oh my goodness." They squirmed against his chest and struggling to lift themselves off him. "I'm so sorry, sir. I just couldn't … I mean, perhaps you couldn't tell but there were these men and … I haven't hurt you, have I?"

Slowly, Constantine gathered his faculties and realized he was lying on the floor in the museum's entrance with a young lady sprawled on top of him. He lifted his head and blinked wearily at the moving figure. All he could see was a blur of red.

The fire.

Gradually, the blur focused itself and he discovered this "fire" was, in fact, no fire at all, but shockingly red hair.

It was her. The girl from the second row.

She had her palms pressed flat against his chest, paused in the middle of attempting to stand so she could stare straight into his eyes with a sorry expression of genuine concern. She was even more beautiful up close, with a constellation of light freckles across her cheeks and eyes so green they looked like candies.

He was trapped beneath her but sooner felt trapped by her stare.

She peered at him with her head tilted slightly. "Well? Have I?"

"What?" Constantine asked.

"Have I hurt you? You aren't saying much and I fear I've tackled you too hard. Did you hit your head?"

The door to the museum was still open, and now Constantine realized he could hear a hum of angry shouts coming from the street. He remembered the glass that had exploded beside him while he stood in the doorway, and the shock of realizing that perhaps it had not been meant to hit the side of the building, but to hit him.

He sat up a little and the girl scrambled to get off his chest and stand next to him, twisting the hem of her dress in her hands as she observed him silently. It took a moment for his alcohol-infused mind to put together all the pieces. But soon he understood just what had happened.

"You knew what they were going to do," he said slowly. "You knew they meant to attack me. You helped me. Thank you."

Her pretty, pale cheeks flushed a deep pink and she tucked her chin into her chest shyly. "I couldn't stand to see them hurt you. Although somehow, I managed to do that myself."

Constantine got to his feet and offered her a smile as he straightened the lapels of his jacket. "I'd take a tackle to the floor over a bottle to the face any day."

The two stood in a comfortable silence, broken only by the voices that continued to force their way from the streets inside the building. Constantine quickly yanked the door closed, successfully silencing the protesters and bathing himself and the girl in a pleasant glow offered by a single light above them.

She was embarrassed, that much he could tell. Her eyes, so confident in their stare before, now darted anxiously from his face to his feet, looking everywhere but directly at him. Her cheeks were still ruddy and she seemed uncertain of what to say next. He decided to help her.

"I recognize you from the show," he said. "You were there in the second row, were you not?" Without realizing what he was doing, his hand reached out and captured a single, copper ringlet of her hair between his fingers. "Like fire," he murmured. "I could not possibly forget it."

Her lips pulled back into a smile. "I recognize you, too. You were one of the performers."

"I was," he laughed and dropped his hand, appreciating her light tease. "I'm surprised you know me. I have a habit of blending into a crowd."

Now her smile softened. She reached her own hand out to cup the side of his face in a gesture that was so intimate yet so casual. It surprised Constantine and kept him rooted to the spot as her gentle fingers touched his inked skin.

"You're much too extraordinary to blend in," the girl said.

When was the last time someone had touched him like that? He thought of the women in brothels who went out of their way to avoid contact with his skin like perhaps his tattoos were contagious and could spread through their fingers and over their own bodies. He knew the last hand he shook, which was Barnum's, but simply could not remember the last caress he felt.

The girl suddenly dropped her hand, perhaps feeling she'd stepped too far.

"I should go," she said, and his heart plummeted in his chest at her words. "I should have been home hours ago."

"Stay," he said, quickly moving to block her path as she attempted to go towards the doors. "We could have a drink? Or I could introduce you to the other performers?" He heard the desperation in his voice. It sounded so foreign to him. Since when was he ever like this? Since when was he ever so eager for someone else's company? His entire life was defined by comfortable solace and yet here he was, desperate for this stranger to stay with him.

Her flush deepened. "I'm sorry, I can't. I must go home. You don't understand. Mother will absolutely murder me, I'm so late."

An overbearing mother seemed telltale of a life bridled by order, he thought to himself with a small frown. He looked at this girl, really looked at her, and noticed the dress she wore seemed much finer than what he usually saw members of the audience wear. His eyes flickered to her shoes, and they unsurprisingly matched the color of the dress perfectly.

Had this girl had taken a night off from a life of high society and class to venture to the museum where the absolute lowest of the low came to put on a show?

If she did, she seemed awfully reluctant to go back.

"What is your name?" He asked.

She tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and offered her hand. "I'm Winnie. Well, Winnifred, actually. Winnifred Laisure."

Laisure. It certainly sounded high-class.

He took her small hand into his own and shook it. "Winnie," he repeated.

"And you?" she asked. "What shall I call you?"

A million names had burned his ears throughout his lifetime, each uglier than the last. His current, however, felt to be the only one worthy of touching her lips.

"Here, they call me Prince Constantine," he said.

Her face broke out into a wide smile. "Oh my, a prince?"

He gave a shallow bow. "Of only the highest royalty."

"Well, Prince Constantine," she said with a delighted laugh, "it was a pleasure meeting you. I apologize again for pushing you to the ground."

"And I thank you again for saving me from an attack I certainly could not have prevented on my own."

Although obviously unwilling to accept the heroics of her action, Winnie allowed a gentle smile. "I suppose we'll compromise and just call it a clumsy rescue then."

"Yes," he agreed. "I suppose we will."

He realized he was still holding her hand at the same time she did, and both their grips loosened and fell away. He felt himself yearning to touch her again but kept his hands firmly at his sides as she started towards the door.

"Wait," he said suddenly.

She spun around to face him with a surprised expression. "Yes?"

"There's another show tomorrow night," he said. "Same time. Please come. I'll meet you afterward, but out back this time, just around the building in the alley."

She seemed to hesitate before answering, considering his offer with a furrowed brow and an uncertain frown. From where he stood, Constantine could tell this young lady was grappling with some sort of inner conflict, and it wasn't difficult to imagine it had everything to do with having to escape from her life and enter his own, two nights in a row – certainly no easy task for a girl who seemed trapped pleasing everyone but herself.

Finally, Winnie gave him a slow nod. "I shall try my best to be here," she said.

The relief that consumed him nearly knocked him off his feet for the second time that evening. "Please do," he said.

She opened the door and looked at him one last time. "Until tomorrow," she whispered, and then slipped outside into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Winnie's fingers absently stroked the ivory keys of the piano, but the melody she made was lost to her own ears.

Since her encounter with Constantine, she hadn't been able to focus on anything else. She spent the entire following day replaying their meeting over and over again, relishing in the memory of lying on top of him, feeling his heart beat under her palm, being so close to his face that she could taste the bitter alcohol on his breath… It was all so foreign, so forbidden, but so _exciting._

She thought of their conversation, his desperation for her to stay and how desperate she herself was to never go home. What was it about his dark eyes that made her feel so vulnerable and so safe at the same time?

"Winnie, darling?"

She ceased her playing and turned on the bench so she could face her father, standing in the doorway to the music room. "Yes?"

"You know I love your piano playing," he began gently as he walked towards her, "but I think you missed a few notes there. You're lucky mother is not here or she would have made you start your practice all over again."

Winnie's cheeks colored. "I'm sorry, I didn't even realize I'd been playing so poorly."

"Not poorly," he was quick to correct her, "just not as well as I know you can." He gave her a soft nudge and she obediently moved over a bit so he could join her on the bench. He settled in and positioned his own hands over the keys. After a brief glimpse at her music notes, he nodded to himself and began to play, coaxing the most beautiful notes out of the piano and reminding her how Bach should sound.

"I'm sorry," she apologized again. "I think I'm just a little distracted today."

Her father continued to play but managed to toss her a sly wink. "I'm sure you are."

She faltered. How could he possibly know? Had he seen her at the museum last night? Did he somehow know about her encounter with Constantine, and even then possibly understand her emotions towards it all?

He noticed her confusion and smiled. "Your mother told me about Bernard, Elizabeth Harman's son. I'm sure he's quite handsome. And a doctor now – your mother must love that."

Winnie relaxed a little. She felt silly – of course, he didn't know the truth. How could he?

"Yes," she murmured as she watched his aged fingers move over the keys. "I suppose it would be smart to marry a doctor."

Her father frowned. "You don't sound as excited as your mother let on you were. She said he was all you could talk about the other day."

Now Winnie felt like laughing out loud. Surely her mother didn't believe this – she'd spent the entire luncheon watching her daughter with the most suspicious stare possibly, easily seeing through her "Bernard" distraction. Why she decided to lie to her father and pretend a marriage was impending was beyond Winnie.

"I only mentioned him to be polite," she said. "I'm not ready to be married yet."

Her father stopped playing and let out a long breath before turning to face his daughter. "I must say, I'm pleased to hear you say that. I was worried you'd changed your mind." He touched a hand to her chin and cupped her face as he gazed at her. "You're much too intelligent to simply be someone's wife, my Winnie. I want you to marry for love, not obligation."

She returned his smile gratefully. "I want that, too. Now if we could only convince mother my degree isn't the 'waste of paper' she says it is."

Hearing this, her father's smile weakened a little. "Yes, I suppose she's not quite as easily adaptable to the changing world as the rest of us are," he admitted. "But Winnie, I see greatness for you. I know you aren't like those women your mother associates herself with. I know you can change the world, and you will someday."

It was moments like these that made Winnie immensely grateful she had someone like her father in her life. His words were tender and filled her with pride, imagining the same future he could see quite plainly for her. Now she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight, inhaling the smell of cigar smoke on his jacket and the musky cologne his mother insisted he wore.

"I love you," she told him.

He returned her hug and kissed her top of her head. "I love you too, darling. And no more coming home past midnight, understood? Your poor mother nearly had a fit last night."

"I'll do my best," Winnie said, to which he laughed and stood from the bench.

"I'm sure you will."

As her father made his exit, he hesitated briefly in the doorway, suddenly serious again. "You know," he said, "your mother loves you very much. She only wants what she thinks is best for you."

Winnie looked at him and tried with all her heart to let herself believe his words. "Yes," she lied quietly, "I know."

* * *

Quite unexpectedly, Constantine awoke in the morning and realized he had spent the night dreaming about her.

He saw her lying still on a bed of pale satin sheets, her red hair spilled out around her face in a halo of fire. She had her head lolled to the side, watching him from beneath thick lashes as he stroked his hand over her cheek and down her neck.

"You must know how beautiful you are," he whispered, admiring the flush that followed in the wake of his caress. "Winnie. My Winnie."

She smiled up at his face, but it soon began to fall.

"What?" he asked softly. "What's wrong?"

She didn't speak. The pink colour on her skin began to change, growing deeper and darker until it was almost black. Constantine lifted his hand away in shock, but that didn't stop it. Even where he hadn't touched her was turning the same ugly black color.

He watched helplessly as it consumed her like thick smoke rolling over her skin. At first, he hadn't noticed, but soon he realized it wasn't simply a solid color. It was dozens and dozens of small tattoos, just like his own, scarring her face and neck in a collage of random pictures.

She finally looked at him again, her eyes hollow and sad. "I'm not beautiful," she whispered. "I'm ugly. We are the same."

When Constantine awoke he was drenched in sweat, gasping for air and feeling his heart thumping fast and hard inside his breast. His head felt tight and aching with yesterday's drink. His hands grabbed at his temples and he let out a mutter of regret.

"Not so fun the next day, is it?"

Lettie was sitting across from him, perched atop an overturned crate with her robe wrapped around her body. She fanned herself against the morning's dewy heat and nodded at him knowingly.

"You look like hell," she added when he said nothing. "Might as well have _hungover_ tattooed on your forehead, too."

Anyone else could make this joke and it would send a stinger into Constantine's heart. But Lettie was one of the very few people in the world whose teasing he could take, and actually appreciated. Even in the state he was in now, he still managed a weak smile.

"Would you believe me if I said I am never going to drink again?" he asked.

Lettie shrugged one shoulder. "Would you believe you?"

"No, certainly not."

"Well, me neither." She watched with an amused half-smile as he struggled to pull himself up from the floor, where he had apparently chosen to collapse in sleep the night before. "You need to eat something," she continued. "That always helps me. Something greasy."

Constantine found his feet and shook his head, immediately regretting this as his temples throbbed from the motion. "No, I'll be alright. It's not my first hangover, it won't be my last. I just need some bourbon."

Her amused look fell into that of concern. "Perhaps you should skip the drink today altogether. I heard Barnum talking to you last night. He wasn't impressed."

Constantine resisted the scornful snort that he nearly gave and instead folded his arms over his chest. "I wouldn't worry about that, Let. He's just worried about his show. He's always worried about the show. It's his _baby_ , isn't it?"

Lettie caught his tone and shot him a disapproving frown. "Easy there."

"What?"

"You're hungover, you're miserable, I get it. But don't go doing something stupid now."

"What are you talking about?"

She stood from her crate and stalked towards him, giving his shoulder a hard smack with her folded fan. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're drinking more than usual lately, you're insulting Barnum. Don't think I don't haven't noticed. You're thinking about leaving, aren't you?"

Well, she certainly wasn't wrong. Although this wasn't anything new. He'd thought about leaving since the moment he arrived.

Lettie took his silence as answer enough.

"We've got a good gig here," she said, her voice dropped to a whisper as if fearful someone might be listening. "We get paid to be ourselves. We have a roof, we get meals, we're safe here. Why would you ever want to give all that up?"

Constantine glanced over her shoulder at the other side of the room where he'd hung his outfit the night before. The sight of it made his lips turn down bitterly.

"Sometimes I think this isn't such the good deal that Barnum sold it to me as," he muttered. "Sometimes I think I'm better off living alone in the shadows again than being a spectacle in the spotlight."

"You don't like the attention?"

"I don't like people pretending they would treat us the same way if they met us outside this place," he snapped. "You think those people who fill those seats every night would clap for you on the sidewalk? You think they would smile at you and talk to you and make you feel like you're something to be admired and not hated?"

Lettie had fallen back a step during his furious retort and now she looked down at her feet, her bearded neck bobbing as she swallowed his words. When she looked at him again, her eyes were glassy.

"I choose to believe one-day things will be different," she said quietly. "That this show is the start of making that happen. I'm sorry we can't all have the same bitter hate in our hearts that you do." She turned on her heels and began to stalk away, but suddenly stopped and faced him again for one last blow.

"If we spent our lives hating them," she said, "then we'd be no different than they are. Does that sound like the kind of world you want to live in? Be my guest. But I choose to believe in love, even if you don't."


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Winnie didn't have enough money to buy a ticket.

She stood miserably outside the vendor booth, staring up at the sign displaying admission prices. As punishment for staying out so late the night before, her mother had taken away her clutch and all of its contents, which included the coins and bills she kept stashed in there.

Without her money, she couldn't buy a ticket. Without a ticket, she couldn't see the show. Without seeing the show, she couldn't see Constantine. It was as if her mother knew this and had concocted the most perfect punishment in response. _Just try and see that man again now,_ she could hear her saying. _You cannot watch a freak show if you cannot by a ticket, now can you, Winnifred_?

Of course, she hadn't known they actually planned on meeting _outside_ the building, after the show had ended. But the punishment was still bad enough. Now Winnie would have to wait hours to see him again.

The crowd around her was thinning – they'd all purchased their tickets and were slowly disappearing inside the museum to find their seats. Soon she'd be the only person left standing in the street, alone to listen to the excitement and music that would pour out of the building like it simply could not hold it all inside.

The show was an hour or so in length. She couldn't go home to wait out the time – she'd snuck out through her bedroom window and carefully scaled the roof before finding the garden trellis and climbing down it's creaking beams. It was far too much of a risk to go back while her parents were likely still awake in their own room. She got lucky once when she first escaped – she wasn't sure she'd be so lucky a second time.

That meant she was simply going to have to sit outside the museum and wait for the show to end. With a tired sigh, she leaned her body against the wooden ticket booth and listened as the rumble of applause began to sound from inside.

* * *

Constantine still felt hungover, but his symptoms had lessened to just a dull ache behind his eyelids. That, he could live with.

He peeked out from the behind the curtain that separated the performers from the audience, taking a quick scan of the faces in the crowd and feeling deflated as she realized he didn't see Winnie. The show was starting soon. If she wasn't there now, perhaps she wasn't going to be there at all.

The other performers gathered around him, their excitement humming like a hot pulse against his skin as they prepared for their musical number. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lettie, dressed in her costume with her hair carefully curled and pinned back away from her face. She avoided looking at him entirely, clearly still upset.

He thought about Winnie, who was not in the crowd, and he thought about Lettie's pointed indifference towards him. His hangover suddenly returned at full force. Perhaps it wasn't a hangover, though. Perhaps he was simply miserable, and his body felt the need to heighten the experience for him.

Barnum was bouncing on the heels of his feet in front of the pack, holding his cane and eagerly awaiting their entrance. He looked over his shoulder at the troupe readied behind him like a small army of misfits prepared for battle, and a large smile spread across his face.

"Showtime," he announced, and threw open the curtains.

* * *

The streets were quiet and lonely.

Winnie wrapped her arms around her legs and shivered against the cool breeze that raised goosebumps on her skin. How long had she been out there? One hour? Maybe a little less? She had no way of checking the time and relied on the noise exploding from inside the museum to tell her when the show was nearing its finish. So far, it seemed nowhere close.

A gentleman and a lady who walked arm-in-arm passed by her perch on the street corner, their heads straight-ahead but eyes looking pointedly down at her. She recognized the man – he had been a partner at her father's firm some years ago. Johnathan-something. She wondered if he recognized her too and felt a hard, dreading lump forming in the pit of her stomach.

Suddenly, sitting alone on the street outside Barnum's museum didn't seem like the extraordinary idea it had before. Winnie felt quite exposed to the world, for any passerby to catch and report her whereabouts to her parents. She often forgot just how far a reach her mother had through the city. She knew just about everyone she deemed worthy of knowing.

Perhaps it was time to leave, Winnie thought quite reluctantly.

As she gathered herself to her feet, she heard something from around the side of the building. It was a steely echo, like a barrel had been hit with something. Or, perhaps, kicked.

She found herself wandering towards the noise, curious to see who was back there. Perhaps it was one of the impoverished people who lived in the neighborhood, scrounging for food and making an awful racket as they did so. Or perhaps it was someone else entirely.

She knew it was silly and maybe she was walking towards a situation far more dangerous than she had considered. But a little part of her held onto the hope that, despite all improbabilities, it was somehow Constantine back there, right where they had planned to meet after the show, come early to meet her when he realized she wasn't in the stands.

It was the most ridiculous thought she'd ever clung to.

Winnie continued her approach until she rounded the corner of the museum and came face to face with the source of the noise.

* * *

Constantine delivered another hard kick to the side of the barrel and it teetered slightly before collapsing onto its side. He felt immensely pleased at the sight of the sufficient dent he'd managed to make in its steel.

He had nowhere else to take out his anger. It felt hot and demanding beneath his skin, his blood bubbling like it had been boiled to dangerous temperatures. If he didn't do something to release some of this anger, he was sure he would simply burst into flames like the fire that spat from the pit of the second barrel next to him.

The other performers likely hadn't noticed him slip quietly to the back of the group, slowly allowing more and more people to pass him in their hurry into the stadium until he was standing alone behind the curtain. He hesitated, fisted the fabric of the curtains in his hands and thought about throwing open the gates to his misery for yet another ridiculous performance.

But then, as the show continued in his absence without any interruption, he realized perhaps he wasn't actually needed out there. Maybe he'd never been needed at all.

Still dressed in his costume, he'd retreated to the alley behind the museum. At first he felt relief – he wasn't crucial to the show, so he wouldn't be missed when he finally got up the courage to leave once and for all.

But then that relief melted into something different.

 _Why wasn't he needed?_

Even in a production meant to spotlight, in Barnum's words, "the most extraordinary of extraordinary people", Constantine was still an outcast. He didn't shine during the performances like the others. He didn't trapeze above the audience's heads like Anne and W.D. or belt out a heart-shattering operatic solo like Lettie. He didn't lead in the dance routines, either. In fact, what was really so extraordinary about him, when it really came down to it?

He wasn't a marvel of God's creations. He was tattooed, covered head-to-toe in a man-made artistic form of expression that, to anyone looking at him, appeared to be a result of his own doing. Of course, no one knew the truth. But that didn't matter, did it? When they all looked at him, he wasn't a spectacle of defects. He was a spectacle of stupidity.

He was, in all sense of the word, a freak.

If he didn't belong inside the museum or outside of it, then where he hell was he meant to go? Was he doomed to just forever roam the earth, an eternal outcast?

As fury and desperation curled his upper lip, he readied his foot to deliver a devastating kick to this second barrel, but was stopped when he heard a soft voice come from behind him.

"Constantine?"

He turned his head. He recognized the sound immediately because he'd memorized its soft melody. More than that, he'd heard it in his dreams the night before and had been cursed to listen to her words over and over again afterwards, playing like an endless loop in his ears even after he'd woken up: " _I'm ugly. We are the same_."

She stood a few feet away from him, smiling shyly as her copper hair caught in the cool evening breeze and her pale skin glowing white beneath the moon's watchful gaze. Her dress was a brilliant shade of blue, the same color he remembered the Mediterranean Sea to be, and wrapped around her legs like waves crashing up against her as she waded into the water.

Looking at her, he felt every last ounce of his anger melt away from his body.

"You're here," he said.

"I'm here." She looked down at the damaged barrel, one eye brow raised slightly at the sight of it. "Are you taking a break from the show?"

"For tonight, yes." He started towards her and then stopped, suddenly feeling silly in his performance outfit. He retreated back again. "I wasn't really in the right mood for singing and dancing this evening."

She carefully stepped around the garbage that littered the alley and the overturned, dented barrel as she approached where he stood. She stopped opposite him and shared in the heat the upright barrel's flames offered. Her eyes locked on his again as she held her hands out over the fire.

"It's cold out here," she said, and her shoulders shuddered against the wind.

He frowned. "Well, why aren't you inside with the others?"

"I didn't have money for a ticket," she replied with a sheepish smile. "I guess I thought it would be fine to wait outside but it's much chillier than I had anticipated it to be. Don't let the length of this dress fool you. It's not warm at all."

Constantine let his eyes lower to take in the outfit and found himself admiring the soft curves that the dress' fabric clung to. How long had it been since he'd undressed a woman, or even just touched a woman? His fingers twitched at his side, aching, imaging how soft she would be in his hands. But he resisted. He would never be able to forgive himself if his touch made her recoil like the others.

"It's funny, isn't it?" Winnie continued.

His eyes flickered up to hers. "What is?"

"Tonight, we were both supposed to be in there," she nodded her head towards the backdoors of the museum. "Yet, somehow, we both ended up out here instead." Her eye lashes fluttered shyly as she looked down at the fire. "Any other girl might say it was fate."

Constantine suddenly felt very warm all over. "And what do you say?"

* * *

Winnie's cheeks flushed at his question. Would she sound silly if she told the truth? Would he despise her for it? She wished she could lose herself in the silly fantasies of other girls but she simply knew too much of the world and felt a bitter resentment at the thought of her life being laid out before her like a length of rope she must follow.

"Pure luck, I suppose," she replied finally.

Constantine smiled. "You don't believe in fate?" he asked softly, to which she shook her head. "Why not?"

"If I believe in fate," she began, thinking carefully on how to proceed before continuing, "then that means I believe I have no control over my own life. And I don't like that idea very much at all."

She watched the hot flames swim in the reflection of his dark eyes as he observed her thoughtfully.

"I know what you're thinking," she continued. "'Oh, poor little rich girl, so unhappy with her privileged life.'"

Constantine shook his head. "I wasn't thinking that at all."

"You were. I know you were. But that's okay. I know how spoiled I am, and I know there are people in the world who are far worse off than I am." Winnie's fingers flexed open and closed over the flames, mindful of his stare as she gazed down the barrel. "I don't expect you to understand."

He was silent for a moment. And then, "Well, why don't you help me understand?"


	6. Chapter 6

6.

He truly could not get enough of her.

Never had anyone been able to capture Constantine's interest and hold it so tightly the way Winnie's gentle words did. He felt them kiss his ears and yearned for more, yearned for the sweet melody of her voice and the endearing gaze she settled on him as she spoke. For someone so shy and unsure of herself, she certainly knew how to make someone think there was no one else in the world she would rather be speaking to.

The two stood close inside the museum, hidden from the guests and performers at the very back of the building. Constantine knew many hiding spots – he'd discovered a great number of them after he'd joined the troupe. Perfect for stealing away when things got to be too much.

Once the two had journeyed inside the museum, he had taken a grave chance and grasped Winnie's hand to lead her through several tight halls before they found a quiet, secluded alcove to chat in. To his surprise and immense delight, she never once attempted to free her hand.

Now, long after the roar of applause had quieted and signalled the end of the night's show, Constantine and Winnie remained together, completely enthralled in each other's company.

"I was six or seven," Winnie was saying, her voice lowered despite Constantine's reassurance that absolutely no one could find them, let alone hear them. "Mother gave me my first pair of heeled shoes, these ghastly little red things that no girl that age should ever be expected to balance on. We were at a dinner for father's firm and I was supposed to walk a short distance and place a kiss on my father's cheek after the Lord's Prayer – a silly idea my mother had come up with to try and charm father's partners."

Constantine felt his lips pulling back into a smile. "A six-year-old in heels? You must have felt like you were on stilts."

"I could hardly stay standing. How she ever expected me to walk is beyond me." Winnie gave an embarrassed laugh and then clapped a hand over her eyes, as if the memory were too shameful to replay. "Of course, I took one step towards my father and landed flat on my face. I wailed and wailed and, in mother's words, 'completely ruined the dinner for everyone unlucky enough to attend',"

Constantine roared with laughter and delighted when he heard Winnie join in. At some point during the story, they'd moved just closer together. Now he could feel the heat of her body, just a breath away from his, as the two shared in each other's company in that extraordinarily small alcove.

It was quite dark. He could see her because of a warm candle that glowed a few feet from where they stood, but he still felt the intimacy that the only relative light introduced around them. If he were a braver man, perhaps he would attempt a kiss. But in fact, something about Winnie made him feel terribly vulnerable and cowardly.

As their laughter subsided, so did Winnie's smile.

"Growing up," she began quietly, "I always told myself mother did what she did because she loves me. Father's always said so, and I want so badly to believe him. But I think now I've really come to understand that she's simply just a cold, uncaring woman." Her lips pressed together tightly as she took a difficult swallow before continuing. "I sometimes fear I truly hate my mother."

Constantine was quiet, listening with a somber expression. His heart shattered at her unhappiness. He wanted nothing more than to comfort her, but he didn't know how. A lifetime of repulsion from others rendered him utterly useless.

Her eyes searched his. "Am I terrible for saying that?"

"No," he answered instantly, because this was the truth. "You're the most wonderful person I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. You could never be terrible, never."

Winnie looked like she wanted to smile, but it died on her lips. "But you hardly know me."

"I'd like to think I know you quite well," he countered. "Perhaps you haven't realized, but we've been talking without pause for hours now. I know just about everything there is to know about you. Ask me what your favourite flower is, your worst fear, the first song you learned to play on the piano. I promise I'll know the answers."

Her cheeks pinkened at his words. When she smiled, his heart stumbled over and over in his chest, and he thought perhaps he wasn't so useless at comforting others after all.

"You know so much about me," she said, "but I feel like I know nothing at all about you. Tell me something. Tell me anything."

This was the moment Constantine had been dreading all evening. Her curiosity was natural, of course, and he understood it came from a place that was strictly genuine. But he still felt himself growing cold and hard, firmly replacing the barrier he kept erected always.

"There's nothing to tell," he replied stiffly.

Winnie's disappointment sliced through him like a burning blade. "Nothing?" She repeated, frowning up at his face. "That can't be true."

"I'm not nearly as interesting as you are. I would just bore you."

Now she looked hurt. "Bore me?"

He could feel his fingers beginning to prickle, a damp sweat starting in the small of his back. He felt caught between pleasing this wonderful girl, which he wanted to do so badly, and keeping his horrid life as far away from her ears as possible. He didn't want to see her face as he told her of his upbringing, of the worst moments he himself tried so desperately to forget. He didn't want to see her reaction because he knew it would certainly change her image of him. And that was something he couldn't live with.

"I didn't mean it like that," Constantine corrected with a frustrated sigh. "I just… It's nothing you would want to hear. It's not a happy life, Winnie. Not worth repeating in the slightest. Let's just leave it at that."

* * *

Winnie could see the exact moment Constantine shut himself away from her, like a thick curtain had been drawn behind his eyes. He became stiff, rigid. He looked through her, not at her. It was like she'd hit a nerve that had the ability to turn him into a completely different man.

She felt disappointment fill her limbs and ache her heart. They'd been doing so _well._ Hours of conversation, hours of sharing in each other's company and developing a natural rapport. It all felt ruined now.

"I'm sorry," Winnie whispered, feeling silly and wishing she could sink into the floor. "I didn't mean to upset you."

She gazed down at her shoes, inside which her toes flexed tightly as she fought back against the lump that was forming in her throat. It was ridiculous to get so emotional, but it was also ridiculous to share your entire life's events with someone who couldn't be bothered to share theirs in return. She might as well have been confessing to a brick wall.

She saw his bare feet, the tops of which were covered in tattoos in the same fashion as the rest of his body, take a step towards her. His toes and the toes of her shoes nearly touched each other. But only nearly.

"I'm sparing you the ugly the details," he whispered, his breath ghosting the top of her tilted head. "You're much too lovely to be subjected to such a terrible story."

Winnie heard, not for the first time, the accent that lilted his voice and made his words come out just slightly wrong in pronunciation. His English wasn't at all terrible, she thought. In fact he spoke it so well she didn't immediately notice upon their first meeting that there was any accent to be heard. But now she could hear it and tried to decipher where in the world such an accent might derive from. Greece, perhaps.

"Tell me where you were born," she asked now, surely an innocent enough request.

Constantine stared at her for a moment, his jaw moving as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. Finally, he spoke. "Souli, a little mountain town in Greece."

Winnie let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Greece. She clung to this tiny piece of information, the most intimate piece he had given her, and felt herself smile. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

He gave a quiet chuckle. "Entirely painless."

"I don't suppose I could extract any more from you, could I?"

Constantine smiled and made a zipper motion over his lips.

"Well," she sighed, "I guess I can live with Souli. For now."

The two stood in a comfortable silence. Winnie found her eyes wandering over his bare chest until they settled in the very middle, right between his decorated pecs. There displayed his biggest and brightest tattoo – a red, anatomical heart. Her hand reached out and gently pressed over top of it. She felt him stiffen beneath her touch.

"Is this where your heart is?" she asked, grinning at the illustration rather coyly. "Right here in the middle of your chest?"

His hand came up and over hers, holding it there against his skin. She felt her entire body come alive at the intimacy of the gesture.

"It's actually over here," Constantine murmured, and he adjusted her touch, so her palm was flat over his left breast. His heart pounded hard and very quickly, pulsing there against her hand like it was readying to burst right out of his chest. In fact, she could feel hers doing the same inside her own breast.

"It's beating awfully fast," she pointed out breathlessly.

"I suppose it is." His long fingers flexed over her hand, spread wide and covering her delicate knuckles with his much larger paw.

When she turned her face up to look at his, she was met with the soft brush of his lips over top her own, a ghost of a kiss that she received with a surprised intake of breath.

Her first kiss.

* * *

It was perhaps the bravest moment of his life, stealing a kiss from Miss Winnifred Laisure as the two stowed away in the darkest alcove in the museum. But in fact, it also offered the greatest reward.

Constantine meant it only as a brief kiss. He had just been so overwhelmed with the tenderness of her touch, so enthralled by the sensation of her skin on top his without fear of the repercussions of that contact. He simply could not help himself.

He dipped his head and captured her lips the very moment she lifted her face. The soft, plumpness of her parted lips caught him off guard. The kiss was perhaps the sweetest he'd ever had. She was so delicate and so unsure, it was quite endearing.

As he made to pull away, Constantine felt her hand break from beneath his against his chest and slide up his collarbone so she could hold the side of his face. She brought his head down towards hers again and this time, it was she who pressed her lips overtop his.

This kiss was much different from the first. Where the former had been tender and fleeting, they now kissed with a blistering urgency, like they only had so long before they would be forced to break apart. But, Constantine knew they could stay there, locked in their embrace for as long as they desired. And the thought made him burst into flames.

Winnie pushed her body up against the length of his and he felt the soft silk of her dress meet the hard muscles in his torso. The deeper their kiss became, the closer she pressed herself. Constantine fell back against the wall behind him and she followed him in suit, mimicking their first encounter in which she ended up flat on top of him.

This time was certainly different. Now he was aware of every part of her that touched him, revelling in the warm figure beneath the silk that scorched him all over. His arms wrapped around her body and held her against him. He truly never wanted this moment to end.

But of course, as in all things in life, it had to come to an end.

Winnie turned her face away to catch her breath, and, as if only just realizing her position against him, stepped back and put a safe distance between their bodies once again. He immediately ached for her return but obediently dropped his arms and allowed her the space.

Her cheeks were ruddy and her lips swollen, which she touched with trembling fingers. "Oh my," she whispered, just barely loud enough that he could hear. "Oh my, oh my."

He didn't know how to interpret this. Struggling to catch his own breath (what a _kiss_ ), he asked, "Are you alright?"

It took her a moment to answer. But when she did, she was smiling. "Constantine," she said. "Dear, Constantine. I don't think I've ever been better." And with that, she hooked her fingers in the gold belt around his waist as she closed the distance between them once more.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

Every other day, Winnie was forced to spend three hours in the afternoon practicing her ballet. It was a hideous waste of her time, but mother insisted she do it to help her posture.

"You walk like your spine is crooked," she'd snap, giving Winnie a hard smack on the behind so she'd throw her shoulders back and push her chest out. "People are going to think there's something wrong with you!"

In fact, there was nothing wrong with Winnie's back. She was perfectly healthy. Her posture simply suffered from the weight of her own misery, sitting like an unliftable weight atop her shoulders and forcing her back to curve under its heft.

Plie after plie after plie, Winnie endured the practices in her tight shoes and her stockings that itched. She wore the skirted tutu with all its tulle that was typically only used for performance purposes but that which her mother forced her wear for practice, too.

Years of the same routine bored her. Sometime during her teenage years she'd stop competing with the other girls, but it hadn't been her choice. Mother pulled her from her lessons and instead forced her to practice on her own in their home.

Winnie had quite enjoyed spending a few hours each week, sitting on the smooth wood floors of the studio and stretching her legs out in front of her body as she shared in amusing stories with the other girls.

They weren't the same proper crowd she was used to at home. Sure, they all came from the same wealth as her. But these girls were different. They were part of a generation that refused to abide by their mother's wishes, refused to resign themselves to a live of unhappiness and cucumber sandwiches. They had big dreams and they would fill the walls of the studio with them, each sharing their desires of love, cigarettes, sweet alcohol and, most daring of all, sex.

Winnie remembered one young girl, Rebecca, who often told stories of her lovers with a delicate little smirk playing on her pink lips.

"His name is Charlie," she told them all one day as she raised her arms above her head in a stretch. "He's an investment banker, just moved to the city with his wife."

Winnie had heard this and felt her jaw slacken. "Wife?" She repeated. "He's married?"

Rebecca nodded, unperturbed. "And he's got a family. But he despises them all. 'Too loud', he tells me. 'Those damn kids are always too loud. They pinch my pockets for money and shout when I don't give them any. I swear they'll be the death of me.'" She laughed then, remembering his words with a delighted glint in her eyes. "He was positively miserable before I came along."

The other girls cooed over her story but Winnie always stayed quiet, digesting the lives of these other girls that were so drastically different from her own. Sometimes they asked her if there was a man in her life, and she'd politely tell them she didn't have time for a man, not yet. While she was taking ballet lessons she was in school and had her sights set on her career.

Now she was all finished school and has no clue where to go from there.

Sometimes she worried that perhaps she spent too much time in her adolescent years worrying about her schooling and making herself into some sort of established intellect. The girls in her ballet class were uneducated, but they didn't plan on settling down into marriage anytime soon, like the women who came before them.

To be quite frank, Winnie felt like Rebecca in particular was part of an entirely different species. Winnie too did not wish to become her mother, but she was wary of steering down the other path Rebecca blazed – the path of adulterous, non-committal debauchery and drinking and smoking. Were those her only options?

Now as she continued her own private practice in her home, Winnie thought about those girls and about their stories. She wondered where they were now. Were they happy? Was Rebecca still attempting grand escapes from her bedroom, all for a quick midnight a rendezvous with some man she met that same morning?

Some of the other girls in the class were different, a bit more like Winnie. One girl everyone called Tully was in a secret relationship with a man from the lower class – a man who shovelled coal into the furnaces that heated the general hospital. Tully hid the relationship from her parents and told the girls that someday soon, she and her lover were going to run away together.

About a month later, Tully didn't show for their lesson, and Winnie asked Rebecca if she had indeed run away.

Rebecca was taking long drags from a cigarette and blew the silver smoke back into Winnie's face.

"They tried," she answered matter-of-factly. "Got about as far as the train station before her daddy caught them. That boy will be lucky if he ever finds another job in the state of New York again." She took another pull from her cigarette and shrugged one shoulder. "He shouldn't have tried to run away with the governor's daughter."

Winnie thought about Tully and her coal-shoveling lover, and she thought about Constantine, sweet Constantine, whose hands she could still feel like embers against her skin. She wondered if Tully had felt the same way she did now – anxious and scared, but the most excited she'd ever been in her entire life.

She smiled at the thought, but it soon turned sour as she remembered the way in which Tully's fairy-tale romance had ended. Perhaps she and her lover had never stood a chance at a happy ending. Perhaps they had always been doomed for disaster right from the start.

* * *

Barnum cornered Constantine the morning after his kiss with Winnie.

"You," he said, jabbing a finger in Constantine's direction. "You and I need to talk."

Constantine had been sitting with a handful of the other performers, helping to carefully fold creases into the programs for that evening's show. He glanced up at the sound of Barnum's furious voice and felt himself stiffen, already anticipating the stern talking-to he was about to receive. He hated having to stand silently while someone talked down to him. He hated it even more when he felt it was without just cause.

On his left, Charles Stratton shifted in his chair to pat a sympathetic hand against Constantine's shoulder. "It was nice knowing you," he said with a barely hidden smirk. "We'll remember you fondly, for a couple of weeks at least."

Constantine ignored the dwarf performer and stood to meet Barnum's purposeful stride. "I know what you're going to say," he began with his hands raised defensively in front of his body. "But please allow me to explain."

Barnum fisted the gold-yellow lapels of Constantine's jacket and pulled him away from the watchful gazes of the other performers until they could neither be seen nor heard.

"Do you want out?" Barnum asked, his eyes ablaze with a fury Constantine had never seen before. "Tell me right now, and that's it. You can leave, I won't stop you. You're all here by choice. If you want to throw away this opportunity, this life I've given you, then _fine._ "

Constantine felt his heart thud hard in his chest and his face turn hot. He'd never expected this. Maybe a scolding, sure, but never a direct invitation to the door.

"I know I skipped last night's show," he said slowly. "But did you honestly miss me out there?"

Barnum blinked as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Do you think you are just here as decoration? Just something pretty for the audience to look at while the rest of us put on a show?" He pressed his index finger hard into the man's chest. "We needed you, Constantine. The show was completely off. Deng Yan was supposed to be your dance partner for the third number. She had to twirl on the spot like an idiot because of _you_."

Constantine felt a brief pang of regret, because he truly liked Deng Yan and it definitely hurt to think that she had to perform under those circumstances because of him. He remembered their rehearsals, her delighted squeals whenever he picked her up and twirled her. She just wanted to have fun out there and he'd ruined it. No matter who embarrassed or angry she'd felt though, he realized she never once confronted him about it. She was just too kind.

"I'm sorry," Constantine whispered. "Truly, I am." He hesitated, considering the gravity of what he was about to admit before continuing. "I…I met someone, Barnum. A girl. A wonderful girl."

In spite of his anger, Barnum's expression softened, just a little. "A girl?"

"Yes. Her name is Winnie. She's the most amazing person I've ever met."

Barnum's eyes flickered down to Constantine's collarbone. He likely didn't mean to do it, maybe he didn't even realize he'd done it, but he stole a quick glance at the tattoos that covered his skin there.

"She sees me," Constantine continued and Barnum looked up at him again. "She sees all of this," he gestured at his face, at his neck, at his entire body, "and she likes me in spite of all it. Maybe even because of it. You have to understand, I've never met anyone in the world who can look at me and see me the way that she can. I missed the show, yes, and for that, I am terribly sorry. But I missed it for her."

Barnum was silent, his jaw set as he considered all he'd been told. If he looked at Constantine, really looked at him, perhaps he could see the differences only a day with Winnie had made. He'd been helping organize programs for the show – when did he ever do that? In truth, he'd volunteered simply because he hoped at least one of the other performers would ask him what he got up to the night before. He was practically bursting at the seams, wanting to tell someone, _anyone,_ about Winnie Laisure.

"I'm happy for you Constantine," Barnum said finally. "Really, I am. But you can't let this interfere with your life here. I'm not asking you to forget her. I would never ask that. I'm asking that you please just not forget us."

Constantine nodded, and offered his hand as sign of his agreement. "Of course."

They shook hands briefly, and then Barnum clapped the performer on his back. "So tell me," he said, all previous seriousness gone now as he flashed him a wicked smile. "Is she pretty?"

"Gorgeous," Constantine replied, and felt his chest fill with light as he thought about her eyes, her pink lips, the dimple on her left cheek and the shallow dip in her collarbone. He ached to kiss her there, ached to kiss her everywhere.

"Do I get to meet her?" Barnum asked.

Constantine felt a momentary flicker of reluctance, wondering if perhaps it wasn't wise to overlap his performance life and his life with Winnie. Were they better off existing in this in-between world they had created for themselves – neither out on the streets in her reality nor inside the museum in his? Maybe so. But, he knew that if he wanted any sort of a life with her, this was something he was likely going to have to do at some point.

"You can meet her tonight," Constantine heard himself saying. "She'll be coming to tonight's show. I've left her a ticket at the box office for a seat in the front row." He shrugged his shoulders, attempting to be demure but feeling his heart fluttering behind his ribcage. "Maybe after the show she can come backstage and meet everyone."

"I'd like that very much."

Barnum and Constantine turned at the sound of this new voice in their conversation. Lettie was standing next to them, her eyes trained on Constantine's face with a gentle smile pulling at the corners of her lips. They shared a look, an unspoken apology passing between the two friends before Lettie reached out to rest her hand on his upper arm.

"I'm sure she's wonderful," she said. "Even if she is crazy to fall for a guy like you."

Constantine gave a bark of a laugh and shook his head. "I don't know what she sees in me Let, but she sees something."

Between them, Barnum offered an easy smile. "She sees _you,_ Constantine. Just like you said."

As he stood with the two and told them about Winnie, Constantine felt, perhaps for the first time, an unusual sense of calm and happiness warm his entire body. He realized for the first time everything Lettie had ever said about this place was true. Here he was welcomed. Here, he was family. And he honestly felt the tiniest bit of excitement at realizing just how different his life had become in only a few short weeks. In that time, he'd not only gained a mismatched troupe of people who cared for him, but he'd also gained someone he truly and irrevocably loved with all his heart.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Winnie's mother presented her with a dress later that afternoon. A brand-new dress, to be exact. This was immediately of great concern to Winnie.

"Isn't it beautiful?" her mother purred, holding the emerald green silk up in front of her daughter's body with a sigh. "It matches your eyes perfectly. You'll be the envy of all the women. We'll just have to make sure it fits. Your hips are a bit wider than I thought they were." She tore her eyes from the garment to meet her daughter's gaze expectantly. "Well? What do you think?"

Winnie felt the cold fabric of the dress against her skin and shivered. "It's beautiful," she said automatically, because she knew this is what her mother wanted to hear. "But what is it for?"

The two women stood alone in Winnie's bedroom. Her mother had only just returned from an afternoon spent shopping in town with the ladies from the society. She came home bearing a large dress box that she immediately delivered to her daughter under the pretense that it was "a darling gift for her darling Winnifred." Now Winnie felt sick seeing the dress because a dress could only mean one thing.

Her mother gave her head a brief shake, like she couldn't believe the question. "Why, for the party tonight of course."

Winnie's heart plummeted hard and fast in her chest. "What party?"

"Elizabeth Harman's. We're celebrating Bernard's 30th birthday." For a moment, her mother's expression seemed to cool and harden across her face. "I simply assumed you would be delighted to attend, Winnifred, considering your infatuation with the boy."

Clearly her mother had dragged an unwitting Winnie into this battle of wills. She wanted so badly for her daughter to admit defeat, to surrender to the fact that she truly had no intentions on ever marrying a man like Bernard Herman and had, in fact, been lying to her mother that day in the parlor, as she so suspected.

It suddenly made sense why her mother had gone on and on to her father about Winnie and Bernard. It was all part of this cruel game she was playing. The woman was simply determined to get the truth out of her, one way or another.

"I look forward to seeing him," Winnie finally said, forcing a smile that made her cheeks sting. "I just hope my dress helps me to stand out among all the women in attendance."

Her mother's icy stare continued for a moment before she relented with a tight smile. "I'm sure he'll only have eyes for you, darling." She carefully laid the dress out on Winnie's bed, smoothing her hand over the beaded bodice as she spoke. "From what Elizabeth tells me, you're all he can talk about. I wouldn't be surprised if he propositioned a courtship tonight."

It was getting more and more difficult to keep her smile on her lips. Winnie could physically feel her planned evening with Constantine being yanked from her fingers, coasting away from her grasp until she was left empty-handed and miserable. When the two had parted ways the night before, she'd stolen one last, lingering kiss from Constantine's swollen lips. This one was passionate and deep, both of them grasping at the other like the were being forcefully pulled apart – certainly a good-bye kiss.

"Please stay," he'd whispered when they finally broke apart again, his forehead pressed lightly against hers as they both fought to catch their breath. "I can't wait another entire day to see you."

Winnie felt the same devastating longing to stay there with him, wrapped in his embrace and sharing in the intimate cocoon they had made for themselves. But it was late, it was so late, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could stay out before someone noticed she had gone – that is, if they hadn't noticed already.

"I wish I could see you during the day," she sighed, curling her hands into the fabric of his cape that bunched around his shoulders. "I wish I didn't have to live this… this secret life."

His fingers found her chin and gently tilted her face up so they were eye-to-eye. Winnie was once again struck by the power his gaze held. How could one man have such a tremendous effect on her? She felt like she was melting in those eyes, pooling around him in a puddle of the girl she once was.

"You're the master of your own fate," Constantine gently reminded her. "Remember? No one can control your life but you."

Winnie tried to smile but it turned into a disheartened frown. "I also wish I was as brave as you are, Constantine. If I were, I wouldn't feel this need to be who everyone wants me to be all the time." She took a step back and his hands dropped from her waist to rest at his own sides. When she looked at him, she felt a longing that was so intense, it made her heart hiccup.

"Look at you," she whispered. "You're the absolute epitome of everything that I am not."

Beneath her wandering stare, Constantine began to fidget a little. He made to cross his arms over his bare chest but she quickly stopped him, urging his arms back down again. "Don't," she said softly. "Don't try to hide yourself from me. I never want you to feel like you have to hide yourself when I'm with you."

The tender smile that touched his lips broke her heart. She wanted nothing more in the world than to fold herself against him, feel his heartbeat against her cheek as he held her, and never think about the utterly dissatisfying life that waited for her outside those museum doors.

"I'll be back tomorrow night," Winnie promised. "That's the best I can do."

Constantine nodded, although he looked terribly saddened by this. "Tomorrow night," he repeated, and lifted her right hand so he could press his lips against her knuckles. "Until then, Winnie."

Now, as her mother continued her ramblings about Elizabeth's imminent party, Winnie felt all the life slowly draining from her body until she was an empty shell in a pair of silk slippers.

"Be ready to leave at 7 o'clock," her mother finished finally with narrowed eyes, like she was in no mood to be argued with. As it turned out, she wouldn't have to worry about that. Winnie's head nodded back and forth numbly.

"Yes mother," she said, the words hollow and distant in her ears like they were coming from someone else entirely. "I'll be ready."

* * *

Constantine could physically feel the pity radiating off the entire troupe.

The stood in a semi-circle behind him, gathered (at his request) in the back alley behind the museum. The show had been over for nearly an hour now. The streets were quiet, the sky was blanketed in darkness, and, most importantly, there was absolutely no Winnie in sight.

He felt someone come up beside him and didn't look to see who it was.

"I'm sure she just got busy," Lettie said quietly. "You know rich people – always got something going on."

Constantine stared hard at the dirty ground, shame coloring his cheeks and making it extremely difficult to swallow. He tried to nod in agreement but knew his head had barely moved.

Lettie slipped her hand into his. It was warm and soft, fitted against his palm and giving him a reassuring squeeze. "No one thinks any less of you," she whispered, so only he could hear. "They all understand these things happen."

Constantine tilted his head back and turned his gaze up to the stars. He felt like a fool. He'd spent the entire day going on and on about Winnie Laisure, assuring each and every performer that they would fall in love with her instantly. He knew there were some of them who didn't believe him, but that was to be expected. He was just so excited and proud to prove them wrong.

Except he didn't do that, after all.

"We're going to go have a drink," Lettie continued in his silence, and gave a gentle tug on his hand. "You should join us. It'll…get your mind off things."

There was a murmur of agreement from behind them as the troupe swelled around the two, all eager to abandon this pathetic display and retreat into the museum. He felt sympathetic hands patting his shoulders, his back, his arms, and wished he could just disappear from all of them.

"You guys go on," he said finally, and the troupe hushed in disappointment. "I'm going to stay out here for a little while."

W.D broke from the crowd and stepped in front of him.

"Do you want any company?" he asked and offered a hesitant smile. "It's a gorgeous night. I'm sure most of us would love the fresh air and the company."

Constantine shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, but I was thinking I'd just wait alone."

"Come on, man." W.D hesitated, and then lowered his voice. "You know it's not the best idea for any of us to be alone out here. We're stronger in numbers."

"I'll be fine." This time, Constantine's voice was harder, sharper. It left no room for objection.

W.D stared at him for a moment. He knew that the trapeze artist wanted nothing more than to stay with him. They were awfully close, and on more than one occasion, they'd teamed up in the face of drunken men who'd decided their verbal taunts weren't doing the trick. He and W.D made a pretty great team. But tonight, he just wanted to be alone and wallow in his own self-pity.

"Alright," W.D said finally, and gestured at the others to retreat. "Keep your wits about you. We'll see you later."

The group gradually thinned out. Soon it was just Constantine and Lettie, just as it so often was. She was looking around them with narrowed eyes, scanning the alley for any potential threats.

"There's no one here," Constantine assured her, and felt his chest pinch so tight he could hardly breathe enough to finish. "Absolutely no one."

Lettie was suddenly hugging him. He felt the scratch of her beard against his bare chest, the shuddering sigh she gave as she embraced him.

"I know what you're thinking right now," she said. "And I want you to stop that right now. You always think the worst, Constantine. You need to have a little more faith in people."

He knew she was right. After all, he and Winnie had had such an amazing time together the night before. There wasn't a single indication that told him she wouldn't show up tonight. Besides, she had said how hard it was for her to sneak out the first time. Maybe it wasn't so easy tonight.

"I'll see you inside," Lettie said, and finally let go of him. "Don't do anything stupid, okay?"

Constantine took a deep breath. "I can't promise anything."

"I know. But try." She turned and began a leisurely walk towards the building. "Knowing you, anything can happen."

* * *

Bernard Harman was a relatively tall man with long limbs and ropey muscles that were getting softer the older he became. He wore rimless glasses and had hair the color of gold taffy that he began repeatedly raking a nervous hand through, faster and more persistent the longer he and Winnie sat together.

"I'm really glad you came tonight," he said, and tipped the last of his tumbler of scotch to his lips. Once it was empty, he gingerly placed the glass back down on the table and met her gaze. "I'm sorry it's such a dull affair."

Winnie looked around them at the tables covered in white cloth where some of New York's oldest, richest occupants sat rigid in their seats. She knew most of them from previous engagements, of course. Their sleepy temperament was nothing new, although she had to admit, everyone seemed particularly less exciting that evening. Part of her pitied Bernard for being the focus of such a monotonous party.

"The guest list is a little…aged," she said finally. "I think perhaps we're the youngest ones here."

Bernard's lips pulled back into a smile, one of the first genuine ones he'd given her all evening. "That's certainly saying something, considering this is all to celebrate my thirtieth birthday."

"Oh, don't be silly," Winnie replied. "You're not old."

A comfortable silence fell between the two. She looked down at her plate, at the cold, untouched dinner that stared back up at her, and felt her smile die away from her lips. It was going on 10 o'clock now. The show at Barnum's museum was long over. It made her heart ache terribly in her breast to think about Constantine, poor Constantine, standing alone after the show for who knows how long, waiting for her to arrive. She wondered how long he had waited before he simply gave up hope. Was there any chance he was still waiting now?

Bernard shifted a little in his chair and she realized he was attempting to shuffle it closer to hers. The two of them had been pushed together the moment Winnie arrived, with both her mother and Elizabeth Harman adamant that they couldn't mingle with anyone else. Even Bernard, whose birthday was the purpose of everyone's being there, was restricted to talking with Winnie and Winnie alone. She noticed he didn't really seem to mind, and that made her quite nervous.

"I've had a really great evening with you," Bernard said, giving his glasses a little nudge as they began to slip down the bridge of his nose. "You've made this entire ordeal completely tolerable for me."

Winnie caught the eye of her mother, who sat only a few tables away with her father and Bernard's parents. Unashamed at being caught, her mother continued to stare at the two, silently criticizing every move her daughter made.

"I've had a lovely evening too," Winnie said, turning her attention back to Bernard with the most earnest smile she could muster. "I'm glad I could help you have a good birthday."

He looked delighted to hear her say this, and for a moment Winnie recognized the handsome man that hid beneath that nervous, fidgety exterior. _Some day_ , she thought to herself, _you'll make a lucky young woman very happy_. But she knew with every ounce of her being that she was just not meant to be that woman.

"My mother told me what you said," Bernard began a little bashfully as he ducked his head into his chest. "About you wanting us to get to know each other better. On that note, I would be happy if you came to visit me at my practice tomorrow. Perhaps we could have an early lunch together."

To Winnie's dismay, she felt his cold hand reach out to rest over hers where it lay on the table top. She first looked down at this gesture, and then up at his face. Now he was gazing right at her, much bolder than before, as if he had summoned some sort of burst of courage he didn't know he had.

"I think you're wonderful," he said gently. "I feel you will be the perfect wife. And I assure you, I will be a more than adequate husband in return."

Winnie felt dizzy. Every pair of eyes in the room seemed to suddenly focus on their table, like all the party attendants had been waiting the entire evening for this one moment. She knew with absolute certainty that her mother, too, was watching them, waiting for Winnie's reply. They all expected only one response: " _Yes, Bernard. I couldn't dream of a better husband_."

They were all about to be terribly disappointed.

"I'm sorry," Winnie gasped, and pulled her hand away from his as she got to her feet. "I'm so sorry Bernard but I can't do this."

His expression utterly destroyed her. Not only had she hurt him, she had done so on his birthday. What a cruel woman she was.

"Winnie," he tried reaching for her but she side-stepped away from him.

"I must go," she said breathlessly and shot him one last, apologetic look. "Truly, I am sorry." Then, she turned on her heels and began to sprint towards the exit, much in the same way she had sprinted only a few nights ago towards the museum doors.

"Winnie!" she heard her mother's shrill voice calling out to her, laced with anger and shock. "Winnie get back here!"

She continued to run. _Not tonight mother_ , she thought to herself. _I am no longer your caged bird_.

 **A/N:**

 **Hi everybody! First, I wanted to thank everyone for the incredible support I've been getting for this story. It's unbelievable! I always thought Constantine was such a niche fandom but look at all of us! This is amazing! I'm so happy I can bring you guys a story to satisfy your Constantine-needs! It's absolutely my pleasure to do so because seriously, this is the most fun writing I've had in a while!**

 **I also wanted to thank everyone for the super kind comments! I know I haven't been replying, and I'm so so sorry, but just know I read each and every one of them and I love you all for your kind words! You're all too sweet!**

 **I was also wondering if there are any Greatest Showman characters that I haven't mentioned that anyone is super dying to see be brought up in my story? Lettie is a huge one obviously, and so is Barnum, but I also want to incorporate the others too! Last chapter we saw Charles, and this chapter we got a bit of W.D, so let me know if there's anyone you've been waiting to see show up and I would be more than happy to include them! I do have plans for Winnie and the troupe in some upcoming chapters so there's always an opportunity for more performer-appearances!**

 **Also, in response to a few of your AMAZING reviews:**

 **Hoot95 - I plan on revealing the story behind Constantine's tattoos in either the next chapter or the one after. I have a little chart written out with what I want to include in each chapter, but sometimes I expand more on one part than on another, and one chapter ends up being two!**

 **Cow-Lover2214 - I'm glad you enjoyed the kiss scene and didn't think it was too rushed because a part of me did worry, while writing it, that maybe some people would think "Oh my god, they're like making out already?" But I just feel like that's the reality of their relationship, you know? It's a sort of frenzied, flying-by-the-seat-of-their-pants sort of romance where they just can't get enough of each other so of course things will move a bit quicker than usual. They feel like they've been waiting their entire lives for each other :D**

 **Thanks again to everyone who reviews, reads, favorites and follows! I love you all and you truly make this a joy to write. I know my uploads have been super inconsistent, but I've been interning at this magazine for the past couple of months and the only free time I seem to have to write is on my lunch break LOL! So thanks for putting up with me!**


	9. Chapter 9

9.

Constantine was still standing outside when he heard empty bottles rattling as they rolled across the cobblestone ground.

He was huddled over a barrel, hands outstretched so the flames inside could heat up his cold skin. His cape was doing very little to evade the chill of the late hour. His palms were warm but the rest of him still shivered against the breeze. He knew he should go inside but some ridiculously hopeful part of him forced him to stay right where he was in that alley.

When he heard the bottles, his entire body stilled.

From somewhere behind him, coming from the direction of the street, he heard sluggish footsteps – drunken footsteps, accented by dirty laughs and the slosh of what could only be alcohol inside glass bottles.

"Well hey there," a gruff man's voice said, dragging the words out in a slurring mess. "Look who'e got here, fellas. I spy with m'little eye a freak who's all alone."

Constantine abandoned the fire and turned around slowly, his jaw set and eyes narrowed. He stared down the group of men who approached him and took one, inconspicuous step backward.

"Gentlemen," he greeted them flatly. The word was hugely generous on his part – of course, there was nothing gentlemanly about any of these drunken fools. But he said it in the hopes that they might, for some reason, abandon their approach and recognize that there was nothing worth their time here – this was just a polite man trying to warm up a bit.

They continued towards him anyway.

"Where are all your friends, freak?"

Hearing the word spat out a second time made Constantine instinctively flinch. He felt his hands curling into fists at his side, no longer cold but beginning to warm as a fiery hatred burned at his core.

"I think it's time you all went home," he said firmly. "You have no business here."

There was laughter in response. Bottles were brought to puckered lips as the men observed him scornfully.

"We could say the same thing t'you," the apparent leader said, earning more laughter from the others. He jabbed one dirty finger in the performer's direction, and it wobbled a little as he spoke. "You don't belong here. None a'ya do. Just a bunch of circus freaks, that's what y'are. We don't want 'ya kind."

Constantine wondered how the city of New York could ever let a drunken, dirty, pot-bellied man speak on their behalf like this. Surely it wasn't the representation they wanted.

"Where's tha' girl?" the man suddenly asked, and Constantine's skin prickled.

"What girl?" he asked, but he already knew the answer.

The man's lips pulled back into a greasy smile. "The pretty one with the red hair. I remember her, alrigh'. She pushed 'ya outta the way the other nigh'." He tilted his head to the side a little, observing Constantine's reactions delightfully. He must have noticed the way his shoulders tightened and his clenched fists that shook at his sides because his smile grew into a smirk.

"Is she 'ya girlfriend?"

Constantine said nothing. He was fighting the anger that climbed and crawled through his body, filling his limbs with hate and a fury he was quickly losing control of.

The man moved even closer to him, close enough that Constantine could smell the stale alcohol that clouded in front of his face as he spoke.

"What's she doin' with a freak like you?" the man asked, so quietly that only Constantine could hear him. "Pretty thing like tha' needs a real man who can take care of her. Think maybe I could draw some pictures on my skin and she'll jump righ' into bed with me too? I'd love to show her how a real man fu-"

He never got the chance to finish his sentence; Constantine pulled back his arm and delivered his fist right into the man's mouth.

* * *

Winnie leaped off the streetcar before it had even stopped and sprinted towards the museum, a little out of breath and a little flustered but determined to get there as quickly as possible. Her throat burned from all her running, yet she couldn't seem to stop – she was in this maddening hurry that forced her legs to take longer, faster strides. She'd ran more in that night alone than ever in her entire life.

The museum was dark but that was to be expected, considering the late hour. Winnie considered trying the front doors to see if perhaps one of the other performers would let her inside, but she found herself hurrying around the back towards the alley in the hopes that, in some gigantic miracle, Constantine was out there waiting for her.

In fact, he was back there.

She rounded the corner and felt a choked gasp leave her throat at what she saw.

Constantine lay limp in the middle of the alley, legs sprawled and cape fanned out around his body in a crumpled mess. His face was turned away from her but she could see the hard, black and purple lumps that rose across his jaw and his cheek – ugly bruises that blemished his skin like fresh tattoos.

"Constantine," she cried, rushing to kneel by his side. She held her hands out over top his battered body but hesitated to touch him, fearing she could hurt him more. She felt helpless and scared and, without realizing it, tears began to slip in hot streams down her cheeks.

His right eye was swollen shut. With a meek groan, he attempted to turn his head so he might look at her with his left, but he only managed the smallest of movement before giving up and letting this eye close as well.

"Who did this to you?" she asked with a broken sob, but he couldn't answer.

Winnie took a quick survey of his body – there was a startling protrusion below his breast that made her fear his ribs were broken, and he had large gashes on his abdomen and arms that looked deep, like someone had stabbed him with…with…

At once, she went cold.

Broken glass.

 _Roy Austen._

She had no clue what to do. She felt frozen with fear and anger, but also couldn't bear to leave Constantine's side to alert the authorities. What if Austen's gang were still lurking somewhere? What if they were coming back to finish the job?

Winnie looked at the dark museum, desperately searching these back windows for any sign of life. It was late and she was sure all the performers had gone to bed, but there was one window that was dimly lit on the main floor. She prayed it wasn't simply a candle someone had neglected to blow out.

"Help!" she began to scream in the direction of the weak light. "Help! Someone help, please!"

She tried to scream some more but found she suddenly felt breathless, her chest wracking with painful gasps for air. She struggled to her feet, slipping on the cold stone before finally getting upright. As she stumbled towards the window, she heard Constantine let out a painful moan before her. The sound ripped a gaping hole in her heart.

At the window, she banged her fists against the glass, openly sobbing now and unable to form the right words. She simply continued pounding until a figure appeared and yanked the pane up.

Winnie found herself gazing up at one of the performers from the show – a large woman with thick, chestnut brown hair that began at her head and continued along her jaw and down her neck in a curly beard.

"What's wrong?" the woman asked, not exactly mad but certainly alarmed. "Are you okay?"

Winnie struggled to compose herself enough so she could muster out the words, "It's…it's Constantine!"

At the sound of his name, the woman straightened, her eyes rounded with fear. "What happened to him?"

Unable to get the right words out, Winnie moved aside so she could see past her to where Constantine lay unmoving.

The bearded woman wasted absolutely no time. She disappeared from the window and came charging out the back doors in a matter of seconds, hastily wrapping a large robe around her body as she made a straight line for Constantine.

Winnie returned to him as well and fell to her knees at his side, watching as the woman began ripping shreds of fabric from her garment to stop some of his gashes from bleeding.

"What happened to him?" she asked. "Here, hold these down. Lots of pressure now. We have to stop the bleeding."

She moved so quickly that Winnie could barely keep up as she obediently pressed her hands over the fabric the woman had laid across Constantine's still body. She felt the wet blood soaking through the pieces and knew another round of tears was quickly coming. But she also knew if she wanted to help Constantine, she needed to pull herself together. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

"I t-think it was Roy Austen and his friends," she said. "The other night I… I saved Constantine when they were t-trying to throw bottles at him but…" her eyes began to sting and she blinked back the tears furiously. "But I was too late tonight."

In that moment, Winnie realized this was all her fault. If she hadn't obeyed her mother, if she hadn't agreed to go to Bernard's party, she would have been able to meet Constantine the time they had agreed upon. He wouldn't have been out here alone, and he certainly wouldn't have been attacked by Roy. It was truly all her fault.

The bearded woman gave Constantine's shoulder a gentle push so he rolled onto his back. He let out a howl as his torso twisted.

"I know, I know," the woman said softly, passing a gentle hand over his swollen cheeks. "We'll get you help, Constantine. Don't you worry about that." She suddenly lifted her eyes to meet Winnie's. "We need to take him to a doctor _now._ "

Winnie swallowed. "I…I think I might know one."


	10. Chapter 10

10.

Bernard looked at Constantine for a moment and then began backing away.

"No, no, no," he said, shaking his head and holding his hands up in front of him. "This is not… I can't… I just can't help him, Winnie, I'm sorry."

As he turned to retreat, Winnie quickly stepped in front of him and blocked his path. "Bernard, please! He's hurt and you're a doctor. You must help him!"

Bernard seemed torn, looking between Winnie and Constantine's body where it lay on a heap of blankets inside the museum. The bearded woman was kneeling next to him, gently wiping at his wounds with a damp cloth and singing softly as he moaned in pain. The sound made Winnie's heart twist into a tight knot.

"Look," Bernard said, his voice lowered to just barely above a whisper. "These people, Winnie, they're…they're not normal. I've heard about this show before and believe me, it is no place for a young lady. Why don't you come with me and I'll escort you home. Your mother is terribly worried about you and-"

"You are a _doctor_ ," Winnie repeated sharply. "You're supposed to help people who need it! Look at that man!" she gestured wildly at Constantine. "He's a person who needs your help right now! What sort of a doctor turns away from a person in need?"

Bernard sighed and rubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses. "When you showed up at my apartment and said someone was dying, I didn't think it would be a…a…"

"A freak?" Winnie finished bitterly. "Is that what you were going to say?"

"Look at him, Winnie. He's covered in ink. What kind of a normal person does that to himself?"

The bearded woman sidled up beside them, her face flushed and her brow damp with sweat. "What's going on?" she asked, looking sharply between the two and then narrowing her eyes at Bernard. "Why haven't you go over there yet? You've been here ten minutes and you haven't even touched him."

Bernard floundered for a moment. "It's…it's complicated."

"Tell me what's so complicated about it," the bearded woman snapped. "You're a doctor. He's injured. What else do you need? Now," she clapped a hand on his shoulder and gave him a hard shove towards Constantine. "Get over there and fix him because you're a goddamn doctor and he's a goddamn _person!_ "

Winnie watched as Bernard's eyes wandered over to Constantine once again and this time, she saw something change in them. Perhaps he was fighting against a lifetime of rigid normalcy that had been so deeply ingrained in him – perhaps he was fighting to reject this and remember why he became a doctor in the first place.

"Please," Winnie added quietly. "We don't have anyone else to turn to."

She knew this was asking more than a lot of Bernard. She had, after all, abandoned him at his own birthday party just hours before to meet a different man. Part of her worried, when she sought him out to come help Constantine, he would slam his door in her face. But he had flown into action without a moment of hesitation, grabbing his medical bag and shrugging on a jacket as he hurried to follow her the several blocks to the museum.

Despite whatever feelings (or lack there of) he had for Winnie, he was, first and foremost, a doctor. And he must remember that now.

Bernard finally retreated over to where Constantine lay and dropped his bag next to the man, quickly assessing him with pursed lips and a furrowed brow. He began mumbling to himself and reached his hands out, gently touching Constantine's chest and shaking his head.

As he worked, the bearded woman looked at Winnie.

"You're Winnie, aren't you?"

She blinked, surprised this woman actually knew her name. "I am. How did you-?"

"You must know how Constantine feels about you," she smiled softly. "He tells everyone he can about the girl who sees past his tattoos."

"I don't see past them," Winnie corrected her and then found herself gazing past the woman at Constantine. "I love them. They're beautiful. He's beautiful." When she looked back, she found herself folded into a tight, warm embrace.

"You're so lovely," the woman said, giving her once last squeeze before releasing her. "I knew you would be, but you're even better than I could have ever imagined. I'm so, so happy you found Constantine and he found you." She actually had tears in her eyes and wiped them away with a laugh. "Oh look at me, blubbering away and I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Letitia. But everyone calls me Lettie."

There was a pleasant warmth that surrounded this woman. It made Winnie suddenly feel loads more comfortable than she had in…well, in years.

"Lettie," she repeated, and pulled the woman in for a hug of her own. "It's so great to meet you."

Someone cleared their throat; Bernard had rejoined them and the two broke apart to face him.

"He's in bad shape," he reported solemnly.

Lettie scoffed. "That's all you got? I could have told you that."

Bernard ignored her and spoke to Winnie. "He's going to need stitches, lots of them. And I'd say he's got at least two cracked ribs, maybe a third. I've got my kit so I can patch him up but he'll need a great deal of recovery time." His eyes flickered to Lettie's coolly. "I assume someone can fill in for him at the circus?"

Lettie returned his gaze evenly. "We take care of our own here."

"Right," he muttered and then retreated back to Constantine without another word.

* * *

Constantine saw the pain like white-hot flashes in front of his eyes.

He tried to keep still, tried to keep his lips pressed firmly together, but he could feel himself weakening the longer the pain lasted. He had no idea where he was, who the muffled voices he heard belonged to, but he certainly understood the burning ache in his chest, the pressure there that made him feel as though his lungs had a stack of bricks lying atop them.

He thought about Winnie. It was the only thing keeping him from rolling in a helpless heap, moaning his discomfort and pain to the world that truly didn't care what state he was in.

He pictured her face, her sweet face, those emerald eyes and her pink lips that felt so plush when they touched his. He thought of her laugh and the dip in her collarbone that he longed to trace with his fingers, the sweet floral smell of her perfume and her gentleness that made his heart flutter and take flight.

At some point, the pain began to recede and Constantine realized he could feel his body again, beyond the parts that ached. He could feel his back and the uneven lump of cushion he was lying on; his fingers, twitching at his sides; his head, held gently in place by a set of hands that pressed lightly against his temples on either side.

His eyes flickered once, twice, fighting the unconsciousness that his body yearned so badly to slip back into. When he finally forced them open, he found himself staring up at Winnie's face.

She wasn't looking at him – she stared with a concerned gaze at something down his body, watching intently with her teeth snagged on her lower lip. He continued to stare up at her because the image was truly just so remarkable, so unbelievable. Was this real? Was she actually here, holding him like this with his head in her lap? Was he still dreaming?

His lips parted. "Winnie?" he asked quietly.

She startled and looked down at him. "Constantine!" she exclaimed, and began to cry, the tears dropping like hot sparks against his forehead. "You're going to be okay," she told him, just as he felt himself slipping away again. "You're going to be okay, I promise."

 **A/N: So it's been awhile. Sorry for the lack of updates lately - I recently got swamped at work and it was like I had no time for writing! I hope the write more within the next couple of weeks! Sorry again folks!**


	11. Chapter 11

11.

A few hours later, Bernard shrugged on his overcoat and gave an exhausted sigh, facing Winnie with flushed cheeks and a damp brow.

"I gave your friend a sedative, so he should wake up again in a few hours. Take these," he dropped a handful of white capsules into her palm, "and give him two pills every 4 hours to help with the pain. He won't be able to move very much for awhile, but he's going to be just fine."

Winnie looked at him gratefully. "I don't know how to thank you enough for this."

"Right, well…" Bernard cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. "I suppose I should apologize for my behaviour earlier. It was quite unprofessional of me. I don't want you to think I'm someone who can just turn his back on his fellow man." His cheeks colored deeply. "I think… I think a part of me resents him for being the reason you left me tonight and… I didn't want to help him. Is that the most selfish thing you've ever heard?"

Winnie laid a gentle hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze. "You helped him, Bernard. That's all that matters. What you did here tonight is much bigger than what you didn't do right away."

There was a comfortable silence between them in which they shared a smile. For the last few hours she had watched him work on Constantine, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and lips turned down into a permanent, thoughtful frown of concentration. He worked in silence and rarely offered any sort of an update to Winnie and Lettie, who anxiously waited for one.

Now Lettie was sitting next to Constantine, whose naked torso was wrapped in white bandage that continued up over his arms where the deepest gashes were. Bernard had sewn him up with black thread that Winnie, when she had noticed this, realized would leave scarring behind once the stitches were taken out. Part of her worried how the scars would blemish his beautiful skin; part of her wondered if he would even care. Perhaps he would be grateful for the scar tissue that would appear in place of the tattoos.

"I'll settle payment with you when I've had a chance to speak with my father," she told Bernard quietly. "I'm sure he'll be more than happy to compensate you fairly."

Bernard, however, was shaking his head. "Never mind that. I expect nothing and want nothing."

"Bernard-"

"I'm serious, Winnie." He looked at her with a solemn expression, and in that moment, something compelled him to reach his hand out and gently cup her chin. She knew she should have stopped him, stepped away from his touch but she held firm in place and allowed him that brief contact.

"You're a wonderful girl," he murmured softly. "I'm sorry I couldn't be the man you need."

When he let go of her again, Winnie moved to fold herself against his body in a hug that made him stiffen briefly before relaxing into her. It wasn't a lover's embrace but one between two friends who finally understood each other. They had come a long way in just a matter of hours.

"I should go," Bernard said finally and pulled away from her gently. "Don't worry; I won't be telling my mother or yours where I was tonight."

"Thank you. For everything."

The sun was beginning to peak out from the horizon, allowing a warm glow of orange light inside the museum windows. Soon the performers would begin waking, if they hadn't already, and Winnie knew she would have to face them all, explain her being there and explain the horrible state they would find Constantine in.

She feared they would hate her, blame her, and rightfully so. She wished she could just disappear completely but also knew she had to stay. There was certainly no way she was going to leave Constantine now, not again.

Bernard turned on his heels and started for the door but was cut off when a small cluster of people stepped in front of him.

"Good Lord!" he startled and fell back a step.

The man standing closest to him, a dark-skinned gentleman dressed smartly in a white button-up and a blue crushed velvet vest, stepped forward in a move that felt distinctly defensive, like he was attempting to protect the troupe behind him against Bernard Harman, of all people.

"Who are you?" the man asked with narrowed eyes and a set jaw. Before Bernard had a chance to answer, his eyes swept the room and landed on Constantine, unconscious at Lettie's side.

In a matter of seconds he had two fistfuls of Bernard's lapels and was shoving him, poor Bernard stumbling backwards until he landed hard against the wall.

"What did you do to him?" The man demanded loudly.

Bernard, glasses askew and mouth helplessly floundering, couldn't find the words to answer. He looked petrified.

"Tell me!" the man gave him another hard shake, and now Bernard's glasses fell right off his face and onto the ground at his feet.

"W.D., leave him alone. He's done absolutely nothing wrong."

Lettie had left her perch at Constantine's bedside and rushed over to the two, giving the man a hard swat to the shoulder. His grip loosened, but only slightly as he waited for an explanation.

"Constantine was jumped last night," Lettie began and received a chorus of gasps from the troupe of people behind her. "They just left him there in that alley, broken and bleeding out, perhaps even dying, who knows for sure. Thankfully, Winnie was there to help him. She saved his life."

Every pair of eyes in the room suddenly landed squarely on Winnie, who had been standing rigid in place since they had all made their entrance. Now she blushed a hot crimson under their stares, aware that perhaps not everyone would think her the hero Lettie was attempting to make her out to be.

The man, W.D., dropped Bernard completely, who began fumbling blindly around on the ground in an attempt to find his glasses. A young woman wearing a brightly colored sequined bodysuit tentatively stepped away from the crowd of performers and dropped to one knee next to Bernard.

"Here," she said, picking up his glasses and holding them out for him. Her face was pale and smooth with delicate, doll-like features. Her hair, dark, was coiled into a tight bun atop her head with a headband that matched her outfit keeping the loose baby hairs away from her forehead.

Bernard hesitated, staring wide-eyed at this woman, before eventually taking his glasses from her fingers.

Meanwhile, W.D. had turned his body so he was facing Winnie. "You," he said, and pointed at her, "you're Winnie, the girl Constantine was supposed to meet last night?"

Winnie felt like a hot poker had pierced her heart. "Yes," she admitted quietly, regretfully. "I was. I got caught up at an affair and was late and if I hadn't been, perhaps I could have been of even more help." She felt tears brimming at her eyes and tried to blink them away, much too ashamed to cry in front of everyone. "I'm so sorry I couldn't have been there for him sooner."

W.D. approached her and gave her a wry smile. "You couldn't have known what was going to happen," he told her softly. "None of us did. I should have stayed out there with him myself but I didn't. We can't let our regrets consume us."

A murmur of agreement rippled from the lips of those who surrounded Winnie in that room, performers whose faces she didn't know personally but all reflected the same genuine comfort that she saw on W.D.'s now. The relief that consumed her felt like a warm bath; she revelled in it and felt the calmest she had in hours.

"Thank you," she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. "You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that."  
Bernard was helped to his feet by the young woman who had come to his side, still having not uttered a word to her. She didn't seem fazed by this and merely smiled, as though stunned silence was something she simply had grown accustomed to.

"Thank you for fixing our friend," she said, her English uncertain and slowly spoken with a touch of an accent pulling down on each word. "I am Deng Yan."

Bernard finally found his voice. "P-pleasure to meet you, Miss Yan," he replied, hesitant at first and then surer of himself as he held out a hand to the pretty performer. "I'm Dr. Bernard Harman."

* * *

Constantine's mouth tasted tinny and his tongue felt heavier than it had ever felt in his entire life. If this was a hangover, it was certainly the worst he'd ever experienced before.

Every inch of him felt languid and far away. He wasn't sure he could lift his arms if he wanted to – they felt completely separate from the rest of his body, like he was lying in several different pieces, all mismatched and completely independent from each other.

He suddenly felt gentle fingers raking through the hair on his head and found himself lost in the sensation, so wonderful he damn near moaned. It was a reassuring touch, comforting, and he wished whoever it was would continue forever.

Somewhere far away, like an echo between mountain tops, he heard his name, spoken in the loveliest voice he could possibly imagine.

" _Constantine…Constantine.."_

It was so sweet, it sounded like a lullaby.

He drifted towards the voice, using it as something to grasp onto. He feared slipping away again and wished no longer to be in this strange in-between conscious realm he found himself stuck in. The voice was like a guiding light, or perhaps like a rope he felt tethered to – it helped him find his way out.

When his eyes opened, he found a pair of emeralds staring back at him.

"Winnie," he breathed and attempted to reach for her, but his arms wouldn't move. His forehead creased in frustration. "What…what's wrong with my arms?"

"Hi there," she stopped her caresses in his hair to stroke his face, her thumbs smoothing out the lines on his head. "You're on some pretty serious pain medication right now. I don't think you'll be moving much for a few hours at least."

He processed this slowly, the bits and pieces of last night coming back to him in blurry snapshots. Finally, he remembered it all – the men, their bottles, their hands, their fists. He remembered the satisfying crunching sound the leader's nose had made when Constantine punched him, but then that was his friends flocked him, pulled him to the ground, pinned him there and broke their bottles against the stones and –

Constantine flinched and squeezed his eyes shut instinctively. The memory played out like a terrible film behind his eyelids.

"I was a fool," he muttered. "I thought I could take them all."

Winnie's lips pressed gently against his temple, and his eyes fluttered open again, briefly distracted by her kiss. He longed to feel her body against his and to wrap his arms around her and shield her from everything, all the bad in the world. But he couldn't even move. The frustration combined with the ugly memories of the night before made his eyes water.

"You need to rest," Winnie whispered against his skin, her breath hot and dewy.

He suddenly felt panicked. "No, Winnie, please don't leave-"

She shushed him and his pleas fell silent on his lips as she rested her head on his right shoulder, nuzzling herself into the hard curve of his collarbone.

"I'm not going anywhere," she promised him quietly. "I'm here to stay."

 **A/N: Oh hey, it's the queen of excuses back :) I know, I'm terrible: I haven't posted in FOREVER. Unfortunately July/August have been ridiculous for me - I finished my internship, moved apartments, got a new job, and now I have a 2 week vacation coming up. During those 2 weeks I would love to write as much as I can, so hopefully I can get some chapters out to you guys so you don't all hate me :/ Thanks for keeping up with the story! xo**


	12. Chapter 12

12.

True to her word, Winnie didn't leave.

Days passed since the ugly incident outside the museum, then weeks. In that time, she had become as common a face there as any of the other performers'. She was greeted with eager smiles and genuine welcomes every day, from everyone, including Barnum himself, whose approval she sought most earnestly.

"I hear you've run away from home," he remarked the first time he met her, the day Bernard had patched Constantine up. The tall, handsome man with deep smile lines around his eyes, observed her coolly. "Do you understand all you've given up? Everything you've abandoned to come to this place, of all places in the world?"

Winnie, perched next to Constantine, always next to Constantine, smoothed his hair back away from his eyes and felt herself smiling absently. When she looked up at Barnum's measured gaze, she shrugged.

"I truly feel like I've lost nothing and gained everything," she admitted. "There's no where in the world I would rather be."

She earned an approving wink in response. "That was the right answer," Barnum said.

Constantine grew stronger with each passing day, determined not to be bedridden. He took his pills dutifully when Winnie handed them to him, let her clean his stitches with gritted teeth and struggled lies about how little it hurt him, and even managed to walk a little further each day, as far as his healing ribs would allow.

"Nurse Winnie," he would call her as she held him upright with one arm around his waist, matching his shuffling speed during their slow walks from one end of the museum to the other. "What would I ever do without you?"

In truth, she reached a point where she couldn't believe she had ever lived without him before. Ridiculous, she knew. It had only been a few weeks spent helping him heal, encouraging his slow process and tending to him with all the love and care she knew he deserved. But those weeks were more than she could have ever imagined. Being with him made her feel wanted, accomplished, and she looked forward to waking each morning just so she could be with him.

It wasn't always easy, that's for sure. For the first few days, he had spent hours unconscious in bed, murmuring nonsense in his sleep and twitching anxiously, despite her gentle reassurances. Even as he healed, the nightmares persisted. Her mind, too, was often restless and uneasy.

Winnie often found herself thinking about her home, her parents, but mostly her father. She had written to him early in her departure, assuring him she was safe, happy, and living with someone who cared deeply about her. She did not specify where she was, who she was with, or why exactly she had left in the first place, and didn't allow a return address for him to write back to her. This made her heart ache terribly but she had to trust it was the right decision.

Still, she longed to see her father again, to mend the pain she was certain her leaving had caused him. Sometimes she dreamt of him, saw him alone and miserable inside their big house, and awoke with wet tears on her cheeks. But she couldn't go back there. She wouldn't let herself. Knowing her mother, the minute she walked through the door she would have her talons sunk deep into Winnie's shoulders, dragging her back into the life she had only just managed to escape.

It simply wasn't a possibility.

One evening, while she and Constantine shared dinner alone in the room where the performers kept their large variety of props, Winnie caught him staring at her.

"What?" she asked, sitting across from him and half-hidden in a rack full of colorful feather boas. She lifted her face a little so a rogue feather ghosted her forehead, lying across her eye and tickling her nose. "Do I have something on my face?"

His solemn expression remained unchanged. He didn't even smile. "I know you miss your family."

This caught her off guard. She struggled to swallow the mouthful of bread on her tongue, her cheeks coloring passionately, and moved away from the boas, suddenly feeling foolish. "I don't miss my family," she said finally. "I miss my father, of course. But no one else. Absolutely no one else."

Constantine's dark eyes bore into hers with an intensity that made her feel small. "Why don't you go visit him," he offered quietly. "I'm sure he misses you just as much as you do him. You don't even have to see your mother-"

"I'm perfectly content right here," Winnie cut off him, a little sharper than she had intended. "Going back would be pointless."

She stood and began gathering their dirty plates into a small pile. Her rushed, scattered manner didn't escape him. He knew her too well at this point and understood exactly what it all meant.

As she picked up the tray and turned to leave their makeshift dining room, his hand shot out to stop her.

"Winnie," he said, and looked sadly up at her face from his perch on his chair. "I never asked you to give up everything for me. I never wanted you to be unhappy, and I know you most certainly are. It hurts me to see you this way."

Her grip on the tray loosened slightly as her reflexive anger began to wane. She thought about her life at the museum, her days spent tending to Constantine, her nights spent sitting with him in the wings of the performance center, watching as all his friends put on a show without him and recognizing the confused, torn anguish that pulled at his beautiful features when he thought she wasn't watching him.

After the last of the crowd had filed out of the museum, Constantine was usually exhausted, if not miserable, and would silently ask Winnie if she could help him to his bed. She always obliged because she knew how much it upset him to watch the show from the sidelines. He could tell everyone how much he hated performing all he wanted to – she knew it was killing him, being unable to go out there and put on a magnificent spectacle with his friends.

So, she would help him to his bed, up one floor above them where all the other performers slept in a long room filled with cots and blankets. The sight of this once made Winnie feel deep pity for those adults crammed into such a small, tight space together like children in an orphanage. But at some point, she came to realize they appreciated the company, the comradery. After a lifetime of being rejected and ridiculed into hiding, perhaps they preferred the communal space and friendship it provided.

But, while she helped Constantine undress, particularly once he began to get better, she resented the room of cots that he slept in. There was absolutely no privacy, not even a measly curtain between each bed to allow for some sort of separation. When she carefully unbuttoned Constantine's shirts, unrolled the fabric from his shoulders, watched his decorated, hardened muscles flex and unflex beneath her touch, she felt something. It was longing, pure and unadulterated longing.

"Nurse Winnie" wasn't allowed to long for him. That was unprofessional. Besides, he was still weak, still sore, still healing. He needed rest and attention, not her needy fingers crawling up under his shirt, seeking the warm skin of his abdomen, like she so longed to do. No, what he needed was clean bandages, an arm around him as he trained his body to move properly again. She was certain he had zero interest in any other form of physical contact, no matter how badly her _longing_ was.

That stupid, inconvenient longing.

So, since she was a dutiful nurse, she would help Constantine into his bed and ignore the sweet smell of his skin or the slow, tantalizing way he would lick his lips before wishing her "good-night". Then, she would retreat to her own room Barnum had graciously assigned to her – smaller than the others, of course, and also previously used as a janitorial closet, but appreciated nonetheless. There, she would lie stiffly on her cot, running her fingers across her collarbone, down each of her arms, over her tummy, lower and lower, thinking about Constantine, always Constantine, and wishing it were his fingers instead.

Was she unhappy? As much as she hated to admit it, parts of her certainly were.

Now, with Constantine anxiously awaiting a reply, Winnie sank back down onto her chair, setting the tray of dishes between them on the table.

"I suppose," she began slowly, carefully, "I do wish a few things were a little different."

* * *

Constantine felt like his heart had been kicked with a solid, leather boot.

He knew she was unhappy, he'd always known, but it was this response from her that finally cemented his fear.

This was it; this was when Winnie Laisure would finally admit she detested him, hated having to take care of him like he was some helpless invalid, and would go back to the absurdly fortunate life she had once so carelessly given up for him, of all people.

He exhaled slowly, ignoring the dull ache that resulted in his ribs, and attempted an understanding nod that felt like less of a nod and more like he was dropping his head in defeat.

"Winnie," he began, "I know I have absolutely nothing to offer you here. I know this isn't where you ever pictured yourself spending your days, hidden away in a dingy museum with a bunch of…freaks, stuck tending to one of them because he was a fool who let himself get attacked – No, let me finish please," he held up his hands when she began to protest, and despite her clear desire not to, she let her mouth snap shut. He continued. "I know all this. So, if you want to leave, I won't try and stop you, because I never want to be the one to make you unhappy. Never."

Winnie waited until he had finished his spiel, watching him with a saddened expression that felt like daggers piercing open every inch of his skin. She pitied him. She pitied their life together, because what sort of a life was it, really?

"Is it my turn now?" she asked.

Constantine sighed. "Yes, yes of course, sorry. Go ahead."

"Good." Winnie stood from her chair and walked around the table, approaching where he sat and dropping to her knees once she was in front of him so they were eye-level with each other. Without saying another word, she took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply.

He was surprised but accepted her kiss gratefully because perhaps it was a good-bye kiss. But the deeper it became, the more he understood that this was the farthest thing from a farewell gesture.

Constantine gathered Winnie close to him, pressed her gently against his front so he could feel the soft curves he'd spent weeks dreaming of touching again. Nurse Winnie was strictly business – their relationship was that of the wounded and his mender. She never touched him like she used to, so obviously fearful of how fragile the once strong man had become. But he wanted to prove to her that he was better now. His bones were setting, his wounds were healing, and there was absolutely nothing left standing in their way now.

Winnie stiffened against his body and pulled back from their kiss. "I don't want to hurt you," she whispered regretfully, their faces close and noses touching.

His fingers delved into her ember hair and twisted gently in the locks as he gazed at her worried frown. "You can't hurt me, Winnie. I could pick you up in my arms right now, this very moment, and carry you away, mine for the taking, if I really wanted to." He bit his lower lip as he reached for her again. "And trust me, I really want to."

She evaded his grasp and shook her head doubtfully. "Constantine, you cannot lie to your own nurse. I wrap your bandages. Your ribs are not yet fully healed."

"They're almost healed," he corrected her with a coy grin. "Let me prove it to you."

Although she returned his smile, Winnie drew away from his embrace and stood, successfully putting a stop to whatever it was she had started. "You're a crazy man, Constantine," she told him gently. "A crazy, crazy man."

As she departed the room with her tray of dirty dishes, he watched her leave and understood just what she had been hinting at being so unhappy about earlier. He could feel the longing in her kiss – hell, he could taste it. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her, but she wouldn't let herself have what she wanted so long as she believed he was still injured.

 _Well_ , Constantine mused, _I suppose I'll just have to it to her._


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: This story is rated M for a reason...you've been warned**

13.

Well past midnight a few days later, he found Winnie alone in her room, a book opened on her lap and a single candle flickering on the table next to her bed.

She was sitting beneath the covers with her back against the wall, bathed in the soft yellow glow of the flame and looking so ethereal she could have passed for an angel. No, Constantine corrected himself quickly, she _is_ an angel.

Her face lifted when she heard the door open, pleasantly surprised to find the performer hovering hesitantly in the doorway. "Well hello," she greeted him with a puzzled frown, likely considering the late hour. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

Constantine stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him, careful not to be too loud so as to wake any of the other performers one floor above them. As he faced her again, he felt his heart pumping quickly and thickly inside his chest. He mustn't be nervous, not now. This was absolutely no time to let his nerves get the better of him, nor his doubts. Steeling himself, he stroked one hand across his bearded chin and shrugged.

"I couldn't sleep," he admitted quietly. "Do you mind if I keep you company for awhile?"

Although obviously still unsure about his late-night visit, Winnie nodded and gestured grandly at her cot. "Of course. Here, come join me on my throne, Prince Constantine."

There wasn't much room on her throne at all, but Constantine actually preferred this. He tucked himself into the space between Winnie's body and the wall, stretching his legs out so the entire length of his body ran parallel with hers. He propped his head up on his hand and watched as her gaze returned to the book in her lap, unperturbed by his presence. He wondered if he was thinking about the fact that this was the first time the two of them had been in bed together. He certainly was. Not to mention this was also the first time he was privy enough to see her lounging in a nightgown, so damn thin it was like tissue paper on her pale skin.

"Good book?" he asked quietly, trying to distract himself.

Winnie smiled and nodded without looking away from its pages. "Quite good," she murmured.

Silence fell between them once again. Now Constantine found his eyes trained on the exposed skin of her neck, so open and teasing, just begging for his lips. Again, those nerves cut through him like ice and he felt himself growing still, fearful of attempting any sort of movement. _She'll recoil_ , his mind told him bitterly. _She'll push you away, just like all the others. Remember those women in the brothels? Remember how they wouldn't dare let their skin touch yours? Do you truly think such a specimen like Winnifred Laisure will allow you the same privilege?_

Cheeks flaming, he squeezed his eyes shut and willed the ugly voice in his head to just quit already. He thought about the kiss they shared only just days before in the wardrobe room, how she had tensed against him and explained she didn't want to hurt him. Nurse Winnie, forever thinking of his pain before her pleasure. But there was no risk of pain, not now, he knew. He could feel his chest contracting with each breath he took. Such an act once made his eyes sting with pain but now he could move as freely as he once did, knowing fully well his ribs had mended exactly like that doctor Bernard had predicted they would.

His eyes flickered open once more. It's now or never, he told himself firmly. Quit being such a coward.

* * *

Winnie reread the same paragraph in her book over and over again, never quite able to concentrate properly enough to understand what exactly she was reading. Every time she tried, she found herself thinking about the body lying directly next to hers, so close she could smell the cologne lingering on his skin, the wax in his perfectly styled hair; she could hear his gentle breaths as he observed her; feel his dark eyes settle directly on her body, her face, watching her like she was the only thing in the world worth seeing.

If she were to truly be honest with herself, there was nothing more she wanted than to close her book and fold herself against Constantine, feel his body move overtop hers, lose herself beneath the blankets with a man once so forbidden, but now so ready at her side.

However, she dared not make a single move. Constantine had worked hard these past few days to prove himself well enough to move about on his own through the museum, even participating with the performers during their practices. Why, just that morning he had pulled Winnie from her chair and twirled her in an elegant dance around the floor of the performance area, delighting her as she clumsily followed him around the room.

If he was well enough to do all that, then surely he was well enough to do other things. But Winnie was frozen, hands gripping the pages of her book, unable to make herself reach for him. Perhaps a little part of her was scared. Perhaps, for a while now, she had convinced herself she was refraining from touching him because he was unwell. But perhaps those were excuses she told herself to hide the truth – that she was afraid he would unwrap her like a present and not like what he found beneath the paper.

Quite suddenly, while agonizing over her own inexperience and severe lack of confidence, Winnie felt a warm pair of lips press lightly over the skin at her neck and she shivered involuntarily.

"Constantine," she breathed, not exactly sure where she was going with this, but then stopped as he dropped another feathery kiss against her pulse point. She swallowed hard and placed one hand in the middle of her book, absently stroking the pages as the man next to her continued his gentle assault on her flesh.

When his body shifted closer to hers, his torso pressed hard against her side, Winnie felt herself beginning to respond to his touch. Her free hand lowered to the top of his head and her fingers sought the thick locks of his hair, gripping lightly while his ministrations continued. His tongue laved over each part of her he kissed, like he was soothing some sort of wound. She could feel him growing more urgent with his kisses, moving higher up her neck, over her jaw, ghosting across her cheek until his lips finally met hers and they collided with soft moans.

Their bodies tangled as the book was dropped to the floor with a hard thump. She turned herself and curled into him, seeking the warmth of his chest as they kissed. His hands were everywhere like he had sprouted several new ones she hadn't even noticed before. He stroked the goose-pimpled flesh of her bare arms, pushed back the covers so he could slip inside and their bodies could meet beneath the heat of the blankets. Their legs eagerly wrapped around each other like vines, touching from toes to nose as their kiss continued. At some point, Winnie realized what was happening and thought about stopping it before they went too far – somewhere they could never come back from.

But good God, why would she ever want to stop it?

He suddenly broke their kiss and dropped his head to the top of her nightgown, mouthing at the rounded flesh of her breasts that peaked out there. Winnie's head fell back against her pillows and she let out a breathy sigh of pleasure.

She had long dreamed of this moment, presenting herself to a man whom she absolutely adored, opening herself up for him, accepting him, becoming one with him. But the dream also came with a touch of fear, too. She could remember one ballet lesson with the girls in which Rebecca had (quite graphically) described a romantic tryst with her married lover, Charlie.

"He barely let me get my stockings off before he was on top of me," she'd purred, leaning up against the studio wall as the rest of the girls sat in a semi-circle around her. Lifting one eyebrow, she gave them all a demure smile. "We made love for hours last night, just rolling around in his wife's bedsheets, ripping off each other's clothes like a couple of animals. He left some marks on me too – just couldn't get enough, you know?"

At this, Winnie had gasped, drawing every pair of eyes in the room to her. "Marks?" she repeated, horrified. "Did he hurt you?"

"Of course not," Rebecca snapped, a little bitterly. "Charlie would never. But look at this." She pulled her dark hair away from the nape of her neck, showing the girls the shocking map of purple bruises that went from the top of her throat to the hollow of her neck. As some of the girls began murmuring excitedly to each other, Rebecca looked directly at Winnie and smirked. "Like I said, he and I are like animals in the sack. We probably look like we're fighting, but that's all part of the fun, kiddo. Maybe someday you'll learn that for yourself."

Now Winnie felt Constantine's fingers gently pulling at the neckline of her nightgown so he could expose her flesh to the cool air, then quickly cover her breast with his hot mouth. She arched beneath him like a bow, instinctively pushing herself further into him, wanting more, more, always more.

When he moved, she moved and she was reminded of their dance that morning. This all felt equally as unchoreographed, but just like the dance, she somehow knew how to keep up with him and how to match his movements, even if she didn't exactly know what she was doing. She simply let Constantine lead and trusted in him to take her somewhere amazing.

At some point, her nightgown was pulled over her head completely and Winnie felt a brief moment of panic. This was the first time any man had ever seen so much of her. She considered the gravity of this, remembered her teachings in school, in church, in her own home as mother sternly told her sex was strictly to be had between a husband and his wife. Perhaps if they had waited, she would have been better prepared for this moment. Perhaps she wouldn't have felt so fearful of Constantine's eyes, now wandering across every inch of her pale skin that she had so willingly presented to him.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered, and Winnie felt like she might cry.

"Do you really mean that?" she asked, choking a little on the words.

In response, Constantine collapsed over top of her naked form, his mouth finding hers once again as they kissed passionately. Now, delirious with relief and something else entirely, Winnie tugged at his shirt, helping him lift it off so she could feel the hot skin of his decorated chest. She broke their kiss and pressed her hands over top of him, her fingers fanned out as she felt his finely sculpted muscles heave with heavy breaths. She traced the pattern of that heart tattoo in the middle of his chest and then lifted her head off her pillow so she could kiss him there. The groan he gave in response made her own heart flutter.

Beneath the blankets, he moved between her legs and settled there, hesitating like he was asking a question. She wasn't entirely naïve – she knew what came next. A little part of her was scared, but she couldn't deny the unbelievable desire to connect with Constantine, sweet Constantine, on such a divine level. She couldn't think of any better way to show this man how much she loved him than to give him a gift no other man in the world would ever receive from her.

She touched her forehead to his and closed her eyes, reaching between them to hold him, hot and hard in her palm, positioning him where she wanted and nodding her answer to his question. And in that moment, two became one.

Rebecca had once described her lovemaking with Charlie as animalistic; rough, painful, unforgiving, like two caged predators fighting for dominance against each other. For years, Winnie had believed this was what awaited her when she finally gave herself over to someone. But now, as she rocked with Constantine in the candlelight, their bodies pressed together, warm and dewy with sweat, she wondered how she could ever have believed this to be true. Because in reality, lovemaking wasn't a fight at all. It was simply…love. Sweet, indescribable love.

As Winnie blinked up at the roof of her bedroom, she saw stars. No, not stars. Galaxies. Dust and brilliant spectacles of light, an endless expanse of space that swallowed her whole. She felt weightless and breathless and could think of nothing else in that moment than how incredible the feeling of Constantine's hard body was as it moved over top of hers.

Her hands grasped at his shoulders and then fell down to his lower back, feeling each thrust he made there before it moved her body. She dug her digits into his skin and held on tight because Constantine was the only thing in the world keeping her from floating away.

Afterward, as the two laid naked and curled together in a messy, sweaty tangle, Winnie felt him kiss her forehead and knew in that moment sex wasn't strictly meant for a husband and wife. It was meant for two souls who had somehow managed to find each other out of all the billions and billions of other souls clumsily wandering this earth.

She felt her eyes drifting shut and her body losing its hard-fought battle to stay awake. Before she slipped away, she silently thanked God she had been so lucky to exist at the same time as Constantine, because what an absolute privilege and gift that was.


End file.
